•  THE   COMMON   WAY 


BY 
MARGARET    DELANO 

AUTHOR  OF  "  DR.  LAVENDAR'S  PEOPLE  " 
"OLD  CHHSTER  TALES"  ETC. 


NEW   YORK   AND    LONDON 
HARPER  6-  BROTHERS  PUBLISHERS 


Copyright,  1904,  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS. 

Alt  rigkts  reserved. 

Published  October,  1904. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

ON  THE  SHELF 3 

AUNTS 3° 

THE  PASSING  OF  DORA 51 

"LovE  MY  DOG" .  72 

THE  TYRANNY  OF  THINGS 92 

CONCERNING  CHURCH-GOING 112 

ACQUAINTANCE  WITH  GRIEF 133 

CONCERNING  GLASS  HOUSES      .     .     .     .  152 

CONCERNING  CHRISTMAS  GIVING     .     .     .  168 

To  THE  GIRL  WHO  WRITES 186 


225941 


THE    COMMON    WAY 


ON    THE    SHELF 


THHERE  are  very  few  men  and  wom- 
1  en  who,  between  the  ages  of  sixty 
and  seventy  years,  escape  a  certain  humil 
iating  experience,  which  is  known  as  being 
"laid  on  the  shelf."  If  their  children's 
affectionate  hands  lift  them  to  this  dusty 
eminence,  the  experience  may  come  a 
little  before  sixty.  If  they  climb  up  to  it 
themselves  (with  some  slight  assistance 
from  nephews  and  nieces),  the  unpleas 
ant  moment  is  generally  postponed,  be 
cause,  not  recognizing  that  in  virtue  of 
years  the  shelf  is  where  they  really  be 
long,  they  refuse  to  take  their  place  upon 
it.  However,  sooner  or  later,  all  of  us 
3 


THE    COMMON    WAY 

(unless  we  are  of  the  elect)  find  ourselves 
upon  the  shelf — a  narrow,  uncomfortable 
platform,  generally  dark  and  dingy,  with 
the  single  advantage  of  height,  which 
enables  us  to  look  down  upon  the  next 
generation  with  bitterness  or  pity,  or 
both. 

One  very  curious  thing  about  people 
who  are  thus  packed  away — just  as  un 
appreciated  wedding-presents  are  packed 
away  because  there  is  a  certain  senti 
ment  about  them;  or  inartistic  portraits 
of  plain  ancestors,  that  human  decency 
will  not  destroy;  or  shabby  Bibles,  which 
superstition  preserves  behind  rows  of 
smart,  new  books — the  human  creatures 
who  are  shelved,  because  sentiment  or 
decency  or  superstition  will  not  permit 
their  destruction,  these  useless  persons  do 
not  always  know  that  they  are  on  the 
shelf.  They  still  presume — we  still  pre 
sume  (let  us  suppose  that  we  have  reach 
ed  at  least  the  beginning  of  the  shelf  age!) 
4 


ON   THE   SHELF 

to  dictate,  and  arrange,  and  lay  down 
the  law,  in  both  morals  and  manners,  for 
the  younger  folk.  Indeed,  the  first  symp 
tom  of  the  shelf  period  is  a  dogmatism  as 
to  what  is  right;  the  second  is  a  deep 
melancholy  in  regard  to  things  as  they 
are;  society,  the  church,  the  world  are 
going  rapidly  to  the  dogs.  It  was  not  so 
when  we  were  young! 

There  is,  of  course,  a  certain  pleasure 
in  this  second  symptom  of  the  shelf,  be 
cause  it  gives  the  shelved  an  opportunity 
to  thank  God  that  they  are  not  as  other 
men  are.  But,  on  the  whole,  the  pain  is 
greater  than  the  pleasure.  When  we  ex 
press  our  appreciation  of  the  past,  and 
some  silly  young  person  giggles,  we  feel  a 
helpless  irritation  which  is  very  uncom 
fortable.  Indeed,  it  is  this  indifference 
of  the  young  person  to  our  opinions  and 
ideals  which  first  opens  our  eyes  to  the 
shelf;  and  once  we  know  where  we  are, 
the  pain  begins. 

5 


THE    COMMON    WAY 

It  is  only  our  pain,  however;  these 
young  folk  whom  we  reproach  and  scold 
are  not  unhappy.  If  it  amuses  us  to  crit 
icise  them,  to  say,  "It  was  not  so  when 
we  were  your  age,"  to  prophesy  dark 
things  for  the  girls  because  they  ride 
horseback  astride,  or  for  the  boys  be 
cause  of  their  outrageous  slang;  if  we 
enjoy  mourning  over  them,  our  kindly 
young  folk  do  not  begrudge  us  what  lit 
tle  fun  we  can  get  out  of  our  forebod 
ings.  No,  the  pain  is  not  for  them;  it 
is  for  us.  For  us,  turning  and  stretch 
ing  about  on  our  shelves,  peering  down 
from  our  dusty  heights,  ignored,  smiled 
at  (do  not  let  us  say  laughed  at  — 
though  such  a  thing  has  been  known), 
tutored  even — instructed,  if  you  please! 
— in  methods  or  manners  or  morals  by 
these  —  infants!  these  babes  that  we 
have  brought  up  and  cherished,  and  — 
and  spanked!  (And  some  of  us  would 
like  to  repeat  part  of  the  programme 
6 


ON    THE    SHELF 

now,  if  the   opportunity  were  afforded 
us.) 

This  is  the  time  of  the  real  growing- 
pains  of  life ;  but  they  come,  not  to  those 
who  grow,  but  to  those  who  are  outgrown. 
Probably  they  are  at  their  worst  when  we 
have  just  reached  the  shelf,  but  do  not 
know  it.  It  is  a  period  of  helpless  strug 
gle;  we  are  bewildered  and  very  much 
hurt  because  some  fine  day  the  young  fry 
smile  good-naturedly  at  each  other  over 
one  of  our  wise  remarks,  and  then  go 
their  own  gait.  It  is  their  way  of  saying, 
"You  are  on  the  shelf,  dears;  now  don't 
bother  us!"  The  blank  and  angry  as 
tonishment  of  the  shelved  at  this  frank 
information  breaks  out  in  vehement  de 
nial  of  the  fact.  Like  the  borrower  of  the 
kettle  who  declared  that  it  was  cracked 
when  he  got  it,  whole  when  he  sent  it 
back,  and  that  he  never  borrowed  the  old 
kettle,  so  the  shelved  cry  out  that  the 
shelf  is  the  wisest  place  in  the  world, 
7 


THE    COMMON    WAY 

that  they  are  not  on  it,  and  that  there 
is  no  shelf,  anyway! 

Of  course,  such  denial  is  perfectly  use 
less;  yet  it  seems  to  be  one  of  the  ways 
in  which  we  human  creatures  meet  this 
dreadful  moment  of  realization  that  we 
have  been  shelved.  There  are  only  three 
ways  to  meet  it,  and  we  must  choose  one 
or  the  other  of  them. 

The  first  is  this  of  denial  of  the  shelf — 
a  course  often  taken  by  fathers  and  moth 
ers  even  while  they  are  reaching  out  and 
pulling  up  some  reluctant  child  to  sit  be 
side  them  in  the  dust  and  gloom.  This 
way  makes  daily  life  just  about  as  miser 
able  as  it  can  be — apart  from  absolute  sin, 
which  is,  of  course,  entirely  another  mat 
ter. 

The  second  way  is  to  sit  down  quietly 
and  contemplate  the  shelf;  weighing  its 
pain  as  against  its  comforts — for  it  has 
comforts.  It  escapes  modern  responsibil 
ities  because  it  does  not  believe  in  them; 
8 


ON   THE    SHELF 

it  gives  self-satisfaction,  which  is  always 
pleasant,  though  incompatible  with  prog 
ress  ;  and  it  is  agreeably  tolerant  because 
it  is  indifferent.  If  such  comfort  seems 
good  to  us,  let  us  frankly  choose  the  shelf, 
climbing  up  to  it  with  dignity  and  sweet 
ness,  keeping  it  dusted  and  letting  the 
sunshine  rest  on  it,  but  never,  never  in 
viting  any  one  to  sit  beside  us ! 

This  candid  and  good-natured  accept 
ance  of  the  situation  which  permits  the 
younger  generation  to  have  its  own  views, 
is  at  least  harmless,  and  it  robs  the  shelf 
of  much  of  its  misery.  But,  of  course,  it 
is  the  end  of  usefulness  and  of  the  pain 
and  joy  of  human  sympathies. 

There  is  still  the  third  way  of  meeting 
the  shelf;  it  begins  with  honest  acknowl 
edgment  that  the  shelf  is  where  we  really 
belong.  The  reason  that  we  belong  there 
is  that  our  ideals  are  not  in  harmony  with 
the  methods  and  manners  and  morals  of 
the  day.  Life  as  it  is  is  too  complicated 
9 


THE   COMMON    WAY 

and  too  puzzling  for  our  simpler  views 
and  theories;  the  formulae  with  which 
we  solved  our  problems  even  twenty-five 
years  ago  do  not  work  now.  Take,  as  a 
single  example  of  the  change  in  methods, 
domestic  service  as  it  presents  itself  to 
the  housekeeper  of  to  -  day :  the  patri 
archal  relation  between  employer  and 
employed  which  our  mothers  and  grand 
mothers  knew  is  gone ;  we  may  not  like  to 
admit  it,  but  facts  declare  it.  Further 
more,  it  is  useless  to  try  to  revive  this  old 
relationship,  to  insist  upon  our  personal 
responsibility  for,  let  us  say,  the  morals 
or  even  the  health  of  the  women  in  our 
kitchens.  If  we  do  so  insist,  we  are 
wounded  by  a  new  ideal  which  practically 
and  sometimes  actually  bids  us  mind  our 
own  business.  The  "girl,"  as  we  call  her, 
though  she  may  be  fifty,  feels  quite  com 
petent  to  look  after  her  own  morals.  Our 
advice  as  to  health,  say  when  she  has 
a  bad  cold  on  her  day  out,  or  persistent 
10 


ON   THE    SHELF 

indigestion  from  tea -drinking,  is  too  apt  to 
be  understood  as  prying  interference  in 
her  pleasures  or  a  housekeeper's  mean 
ness  about  food.  The  name  of  the  Ideal 
which  expresses  itself  in  this  unpleasant 
way  is  personal  freedom,  and  the  change 
which  it  has  brought  about  in  domestic 
methods  is  probably  obvious  to  every 
employer  of  labor  who  has  reached  the 
age  of  fifty. 

The  change  in  manners  comes  home 
to  every  father  and  mother  whose  boys 
are  in  college  and  whose  girls  are  out  of 
short  skirts.  Don't  we  know  it,  we  moth 
ers  or  aunts,  nodding  at  each  other  from 
our  shelves,  sighing  and  shaking  our 
heads,  gossiping  over  our  teacups  about 
A.'s  girl's  bold  looks,  or  B.'s  girl's  hoy- 
denish  ways,  or  C.'s  girl's  scandalous  be 
havior  with  young  men?  As  for  the 
young  men,  from  the  beginning  the  ad 
justment  of  the  relation  between  the  fa 
ther  and  his  grown  son  has  been  difficult 
ii 


THE    COMMON   WAY 

and  sometimes  painful;  but  when  it  is 
complicated  by  the  boy's  bad  manners 
it  is  infinitely  more  difficult.  The  boy  is 
a  conceited  jackass,  so  his  father  says, 
his  own  manners  for  the  moment  in  abey 
ance.  Why,  bless  my  heart!  the  cub  act 
ually  declines  to  vote  the  ticket  that  his 
father  approves;  and  he  has  ideas  of  his 
own  as  to  the  office  or  the  shop,  and  he 
expresses  them  with  a  clumsy  obstinacy 
that  makes  the  older  man  say  hard  things 
that  he  regrets  half  an  hour  afterwards. 
"If  I  had  spoken  to  my  father  as  you 
speak  to  me,"  he  says,  with  futile  energy, 
"something  would  have  happened,  sir!" 
And  the  boy  replies  with  great  good 
nature,  "Granddad  must  have  been  an 
awful  pill!" — which  does  not  tend  to  re 
store  the  equilibrium  of  reverence  and 
love  between  these  two.  Manners  play 
no  part  in  the  lad's  ideal,  which,  crudely 
expressed,  is  simply  honesty;  the  speak 
ing  exactly  what  he  thinks. 
12 


ON  THE   SHELF 

There  is  still  another  change  which 
forces  upon  us  the  recognition  of  the 
shelf:  the  indifference  of  the  younger 
generation  to  our  ideals  in  what  might 
be  called  the  minor  morals. 

The  youngsters  begin  by  frankly  an 
nouncing  that  they  do  not  believe  what 
we  believe ;  then  they  hew  out  for  them 
selves  strange  theological  and  ethical 
heresies.  The  boys  of  C.  T.  U.  mothers 
order  cases  of  beer  sent  to  their  rooms. 
The  girls  take  Sunday  mornings  for  their 
mending,  and  play  golf  with  their  broth 
ers  in  the  afternoon ;  to  the  remonstrance 
of  the  shelf  they  reply,  calmly,  "What 
is  the  harm?"  They  can  see  the  harm 
of  a  lie  or  a  meanness ;  but  fresh  air, 
exercise,  etc.,  etc. —  ?  Rot!  says  the 
boy  (or,  horrible  to  relate,  even  the 

girl). 

Perhaps  we  might  sum  up  these  changes 
by  saying  that  in  methods  the  new  ideal 
is  personal  freedom,  in  manners  it  is  per- 


THE    COMMON    WAY 

sonal  honesty,  and  in  the  lesser  morals  it 
is  personal  conviction. 

Very  few  men  and  women  who  have 
passed  middle  age  can  candidly  rehearse 
such  changes  and  not  recognize  that  they 
have  been  left  behind  by  the  procession; 
and  following  the  recognition  comes  the 
cruel  moment  of  climbing  up  to  the  shelf ! 
Yet  before  we  settle  down  upon  it,  turn 
ing  our  backs  upon  all  growth,  might  it 
not  be  well  to  try  to  get  the  point  of  view 
of  these  hurrying,  careless  younger  folk  ? 
It  is  not  always  easy  to  do  this,  but  it  is 
possible,  because,  having  been  young,  we 
can  understand  them;  whereas,  as  they 
have  not  been  old,  it  is  impossible  for 
them  to  understand  us.  Hence  the  effort 
must  be  all  on  our  side.  .  .  . 

Nothing  will  help  us  more  in  this  effort 
than  the  memory  of  certain  days  thirty- 
five  or  forty  years  ago.  .  .  .  Looking  back 
upon  those  days,  we  shall  discover  that 
the  children's  indifference  to  our  opinions 
14 


ON   THE   SHELF 

is  but  the  echo  of  our  indifference  to  the 
opinions  of  the  preceding  generation.  We, 
to  be  sure,  generally  held  our  tongues, 
whereas  our  young  people  express  their 
indifference  with  brutal  distinctness.  And 
when  we  wince  under  it,  or  get  angry 
and  red  in  the  face,  or  tearful  and  re 
proachful,  as  our  temperaments  may  de 
termine,  we  know  just  how  they  felt, 
those  fathers  and  mothers  whose  theo 
ries  we  thought  so  hopelessly  behind  the 
times!  How  our  emancipated  youth 
must  have  tried  them;  how  our  (now) 
old  -  fashioned  views  must  have  pained 
them!  Perhaps  we  never  quite  appre 
ciate  the  dear  dead  people  who  upon  their 
shelves  loved  us  in  our  raw  youth,  as  we 
do  when  we  wince  under  the  careless  sin 
cerities  of  our  children.  With  apprecia 
tion  comes,  of  course,  regret  for  duties 
left  undone  and  privileges  overlooked. 
Any  life  which  has  evolved  a  high  ideal 
must  know  this  sting  of  remorse;  many 

I5 


THE    COMMON    WAY 

an  elderly  man  or  woman  groans  over  the 
stabs  he  or  she  gave  in  youth.  There  is 
no  use  in  enlarging  on  such  pain;  none 
of  the  elderly  folk  sitting  restless  and  un 
happy  on  their  shelves  but  know  it  too 
well;  regret — regret!  Yet  miserable  as 
it  is,  regret  will  be  of  enormous  value  if 
it  makes  us  realize  that  the  generation 
which  wounds  us  to-day  is  just  as  kind 
and  just  as  honest  as  was  our  generation, 
when  with  good-natured  complacency  we 
lifted  our  old  fogies  on  to  their  shelves. 

If  we  once  get  this  thought  clearly  in 
our  minds,  we  shall  at  least  be  able  to  be 
lieve  in  the  good  intentions  of  our  young 
people,  in  spite  of  their  extraordinary 
methods,  manners,  and  minor  morals. 

This  third  way  of  accepting  the  shelf, 
with  the  spur  of  imagination  rowelling 
our  sore  hearts,  is  far  from  comfortable, 
but  it  is  our  salvation. 

To  begin  with,  it  will  not  let  us  pull 
the  young  person  up  to  us  for  company; 
16 


ON    THE   SHELF 

neither  will  it  allow  us  to  be  indifferent 
to  what  we  must  deplore.  We  cannot 
help  being  anxious,  perhaps  even  being 
unhappy,  over  what  we  see  going  on 
about  us.  New  methods  will  not  seem 
easy,  new  manners  will  not  seem  admi 
rable,  new  moralities  will  not  seem  right. 
Nevertheless,  we  shall  be  hopeful.  .  .  . 

Take  this  matter  of  the  change  in  do 
mestic  methods:  if  we  look  hard  enough 
we  shall  see  a  certain  value  in  the  self- 
respect  which  is  springing  out  of  the  new 
conditions  of  restlessness  and  discontent. 
It  is  not  comfortable  for  employers  to 
have  employe's  demanding  greater  free 
dom  ;  but  the  open  mind  will  admit  that 
it  may  be  comfortable  for  the  employes. 
It  will  even  admit  that  such  demands 
may  result  in  better  social  conditions, 
and,  after  a  while,  in  better  citizenship, 
for  the  ideal  of  freedom  hidden  in  the  dis 
comfort  and  transition  is  very  noble. 

In  the  manners  of  our  young  people 


THE    COMMON   WAY 

the  ideal  is  not  always  so  obvious;  yet, 
again,  if  we  take  the  trouble  to  look,  we 
generally  find  ground  for  hopefulness. 

We  will  never  admit  that  A.'s  girl's  be 
havior  is  beautiful;  but  we  shall  discern 
in  it  a  certain  rebound  from  the  enforced 
and  almost  inevitably  insincere  demure- 
ness  of  our  girlhood.  B .  's  daughter,  bare 
headed,  bare-armed,  swaggering  across  the 
golf  -links,  brown,  muscular,  vigorous,  is 
not  a  pretty  or  dainty  vision;  the  bloom 
and  softness  of  girlhood,  as  we  used  to 
think  of  it,  are  gone;  to  speak  frankly,  she 
is  not  nearly  so  pretty  as  we  were  at  her 
age.  And  her  language !  her  slang !  When 
B.'s  girl  (and  B.'s  are  nice  people,  as 
everybody  knows)  cries  out,  on  making 
a  bad  stroke,  "Holy  smoke!  what  a  bum 
swat!"  we,  up  on  our  shelves,  shudder  and 
feel  that  the  world,  as  we  knew  it,  is  cer 
tainly  coming  to  an  end.  No,  B.'s  daugh 
ter  is  not  our  ideal. 

But  the  spurred  imagination  must  sug- 
18 


ON    THE    SHELF 

gest  to  us  that  though  slang  is  not  lovely, 
neither  is  it  sinful,  and  that  years  will 
probably  bring  grammar  as  well  as  a  sense 
of  fitness.  And,  most  of  all,  imagination 
will  suggest  that  B.'s  girl  is  not  going 
to  be  the  nervous  invalid  that  her  tire 
some,  complaining  mother  is ;  it  may  even 
picture  to  us  her  hearty,  healthy  children 
—though  that  is  looking  pretty  far  ahead, 
for  B.'s  girl  is  an  unromantic  little  soul, 
the  more's  the  pity! 

As  for  C.'s  daughters — "out,  if  you 
please,  until  one  o'clock  at  night  in  a 
canoe  with  the  D.  boys.  What  is  their 
mother  thinking  of?  —  except,  of  course, 
poor  woman,  she  probably  can't  manage 
them ;  girls  do  anything  they  please  now 
adays!  Imagine  our  mothers  allowing 
such  performances!"  Well,  well!  our 
mothers  come  in  for  a  little  praise,  it 
seems,  by  contrast.  But  when  we  were 
as  old  as  C.'s  girls  we  did  not  praise  their 
old-fashioned  ways.  Only,  unlike  C.'s 
19 


THE   COMMON   WAY 

girls,  and  B.'s  and  A.'s,  we  were  silent — 
except  to  one  another.  These  new  girls 
speak  out !  And  who  shall  say  that  their 
candor  is  not  better  than  our  timidity? 
Oh  yes,  scandalous,  of  course,  that  canoe 
business,  yet  see  the  other  side.  Look  at 
the  simple,  wholesome,  candid  relations 
between  our  boys  and  girls;  no  squashy 
sentimentality,  no  silly  flirtatious  ro 
mancing,  almost  no  sex  consciousness. 
This  lack  of  the  romantic  instinct  is  not 
beautiful;  it  is,  perhaps,  not  entirely  nor 
mal — the  pendulum  has  swung  too  far 
the  other  way;  but  can  one  look  at  the 
young  man  and  the  young  woman  of  to 
day,  straightforward,  clean  -  though  ted 
young  people,  and  not  be  filled  with  a 
certain  admiration  and  hopefulness? 

As  for  the  boy  and  his  father,  when 
one  gets  one's  breath  after  hearing  a 
grandfather  called  a  "pill,"  it  is  general 
ly  to  cry  out  indignantly  at  the  lack  of 
reverence.  When  a  lad,  discussing  this 
20 


ON   THE    SHELF 

or  that  with  his  father,  remarks,  earnest 
ly,  "You  don't  know  what  you're  talking 
about,  governor!"  it  does  seem  as  though 
the  bottom  had  dropped  out  of  everything. 
"He  speaks  as  though  to  an  equal,"  the 
pained  and  angry  listener  declares.  So  he 
does;  and  it  is  a  shock.  Yet  let  the  fa 
ther  and  mother  beware  how  they  lightly 
refuse  such  equality.  Below,  in  the  boy's 
honest  mind,  is  no  shadow  of  disrespect; 
only  an  uncouth  friendliness,  which  may 
easily  be  shocked  into  resentment  if  or 
dered  to  shape  itself  into  the  conventional 
and  certainly  more  aesthetically  pleasing 
manner  with  which  we  used  to  address 
our  fathers.  We  wish,  however,  to  be 
treated  as  superiors  and  not  as  equals. 
And  why?  In  all  honesty,  are  most 
fathers  and  mothers  superior  to  these 
frank  and  wholesome  young  people  in 
anything  except  their  obvious  years  and 
the  burden  of  sad  or  mean  experiences? 
If  age  is  our  only  claim  to  superiority,  if 

21 


THE    COMMON   WAY 

we  can  demand  reverence  merely  on  the 
ground  of  having  lived  longer,  we  had 
best  lie  low,  like  Brer  Rabbit,  and  hope 
the  boys  will  not  find  us  out.  Age,  per  se, 
may  claim  tenderness  and  pity,  but  not 
respect;  that  only  comes  when  the  years 
have  brought  humanity  and  wisdom  and 
the  experience  that  worketh  hope.  With 
reverence  it  is  not  ask  and  receive  but  be 
worthy  and  receive! 

And  even  if  we  are  worthy,  it  will  still 
be  necessary  to  remember  that  reverence 
is  not  a  matter  of  terms,  but  an  attitude  of 
the  heart.  Its  presence  may  be  concealed 
by  slang,  just  as  its  absence  was  some 
times  concealed  by  the  stilted  and  respect 
ful  phraseology  of  previous  generations. 

Once  feeling  this  deeply,  the  equality 
of  friendship,  claimed  by  our  boys' 
clumsy  tongues,  will  have  in  it  a  precious 
meaning  that  we  shall  be  careful  not  to 
injure.  Though  we  shall  not  cease  to 
labor  to  teach  them  better  manners! 


22 


ON    THE    SHELF 

So,  slowly,  we  admit  the  hopefulness 
of  the  new  ideals  in  methods  and  man 
ners.  In  morals  imagination  has  a  harder 
task,  but  again  memory  helps  us  out. 

There  are  certain  fundamentals  of  right 
and  wrong  which  the  generations  cannot 
alter,  but  in  the  minor  moralities,  how  we 
ourselves  differ  from  our  forebears !  Some 
of  us  remember  that  we  were  not  allowed 
to  play  cards ;  dancing  and  the  playhouse 
were  not  for  well-brought-up  folk  such  as 
we.  Unreasonable  and  even  ridiculous  as 
such  ideas  seem  to  us  now,  there  can  be 
no  question  that  the  previous  generation 
suffered  very  much  when  we  declared  our 
independence.  But  can  we  believe  that 
our  elders  would  have  been  justified  in  in 
sisting  that  we  should  do  only  what  they 
considered  right?  Some  did  so  insist, 
and  some  of  us  remember  the  catastro 
phes  that  followed.  May  memory  save 
us  from  like  mistakes! 

But  in  this  matter  of  morals  it  will  not 
23 


THE   COMMON   WAY 

be  enough  merely  to  avoid  the  mistake 
of  insisting  upon  our  ideals ;  we  must  be 
able  to  see  the  value  and  the  hope  in 
ideals  radically  different  from  our  own. 
We,  perhaps,  hold  to  certain  modifica 
tions  of  the  old  principles ;  we  smile  at  the 
assertion  that  cards  are  sinful,  but  we 
cannot  see  our  young  people  (or  people 
old  enough  to  know  better)  playing 
Bridge  for  money  without  a  shudder. 
Nor  will  all  the  imagination  in  the  world 
convince  some  of  us  that  such  playing 
is  anything  but  downright  wrong-doin£. 
No,  we  shall  not  change  our  positive  con 
victions  ;  but  we  shall  be  willing  to  let  the 
younger  people  reach  their  convictions 
in  their  own  way.  They  may  have  to 
burn  their  fingers  at  Bridge  before  they 
learn  the  lesson  that  we  could  teach  them 
comfortably  in  a  few  words. 

But  probably  their  way  of  learning  is 
by    burned    fingers.      Consequences    are 
often    painful,    but    they    are    very    in- 
24 


ON    THE    SHELF 

stmctive!  We  never  profited  by  the 
experiences  of  our  elders;  why  should 
these  children  profit  by  our  experiences  ? 
Yet  it  takes  a  good  deal  of  imagination  to 
be  patient  and  hopeful,  and,  after  a  cer 
tain  fair  presentation  of  our  views,  con 
tent  not  to  interfere. 

Perhaps  the  change  in  beliefs,  which 
goes  with  the  ethical  change,  is  even 
harder  to  meet;  yet  it,  too,  has  its  noble 
side.  It  may  be  humiliating  to  discover 
that  our  dictum  concerning  eternal  truth 
is  not  enough ;  but  unless  we  are  very  nar 
row  and  very  mean  we  will  admit  that 
the  young  soul  has  a  right  to  search  out 
truth  for  itself.  And  if  the  search  is  ear 
nest,  and  not  flippant,  it  is  something  to 
rejoice  in;  even  though  our  children 
write  "not  proved"  over  all  our  dearest 
beliefs. 

But  even  with  our  best  endeavors  it  is 
useless  to  deny  that  this  is  a  bad  moment 
for  us,  sitting  up  on  our  shelves  and  look- 
3  25 


THE   COMMON   WAY 

ing  on.  It  is  a  moment  when,  perhaps, 
most  of  all  it  is  well  to  look  back  and  re 
member  how  our  fathers  and  mothers  felt 
when  we  declined  to  believe  that  the 
world  was  made  in  six  days  of  twenty- 
four  hours  each.  To  be  sure,  we  know 
that,  by-and-by,  after  denying  this  and 
questioning  that,  we  opened  our  eyes 
upon  a  wider  horizon  of  eternal  things. 
Yet  those  dear  old  people  who  fastened 
their  beliefs  into  a  creed  that  seems  to  us 
pathetically  cramped,  but  who  lived  by 
it  lives  that  put  ours  to  shame,  grieved 
over  us,  just  as  we  grieve  over  these 
creedless  children. 

Take  the  matter  of  church -going,  which 
is  the  symbol  of  belief.  It  begins  to  be  a 
burning  issue  in  many  families  where  the 
boy  is  old  enough  to  go  into  business  and 
the  girl  is  just  home  from  college.  Sun 
day  morning  comes,  and  the  youngsters 
begin  to  growl;  they  go  to  church,  per 
haps,  if  it  is  insisted  upon,  but  at  what 
26 


ON    THE    SHELF 

cost  of  temper  all  around!  "When  a 
man  works  for  six  days,"  the  boy  will 
announce,  "he  needs  recreation,  hang  it!" 
And  the  girl  says  something  equally  posi 
tive  and  ungracious. 

Yes,  it  is  certainly  a  painful  moment. 
But  if  we  see  no  hope  in  it,  it  is  plain 
that  our  years  have  taught  us  neither  pa 
tience  nor  trust.  Our  heavenly  vision 
comes  to  us  inside  the  four  walls  of  a 
church ;  yet  dare  we  affirm  that  it  cannot 
come  outside  those  four  walls?  What 
right  have  we  to  say  that  the  children, 
lifting  up  their  eyes  unto  the  hills  on 
some  of  their  churchless  Sundays,  may 
not  have  glimpses  of  divine  things  that 
will  make  life  deep  and  rich?  We  dis 
trust  the  heavenly  vision  if  we  do  so  af 
firm! 

As,  sitting  upon  our  shelves,  we  think 
soberly  of  this  whole  situation,  we  begin 
to  see,  if  honest  with  ourselves  and  our 
27 


THE    COMMON   WAY 

young  people,  that  the  changes  about 
which  we  worry  ourselves  are  superfi 
cial;  the  real  and  fundamental  things,  the 
things  that  mean  character,  are  eternal. 
It  is  only  their  expression  which  has  al 
tered.  What  does  it  matter  how  our  girls 
wear  their  hair  —  though  they  look  like 
owls  in  an  ivy-bush;  what  does  it  really 
matter,  the  stumbling,  stupid  slang  our 
boys  talk,  if  honor  and  truth  and  love  re 
main?  Admit!  we  differ  upon  a  hun 
dred  points  —  but  they  are  all  minor 
points;  in  essentials,  in  love  and  truth 
and  honor,  we  can  meet  the  children  if 
we  will  take  the  trouble  to  do  so. 

To  meet  them  does  not  mean  that  we 
shall  give  up  our  churches  or  decline  to 
read  our  Bibles;  nor  shall  we  stay  out  in 
canoes  ourselves  until  midnight,  or  wear 
our  skirts  up  to  our  knees  on  the  golf- 
links,  or  acquire  the  manners  of  A.'s 
girls,  or  speak  the  strange  tongue  of  D.'s 
boys.  If  we  try  to  do  these  things,  we 
28 


ON    THE    SHELF 

shall  not  only  fail,  but  we  shall  be  ridic 
ulous,  which  is  the  cruelest  kind  of  fail 
ure.  No,  we  shall  not  acquire  the  meth 
ods  or  the  manners  or  the  minor  morals 
of  our  young  people ;  but  we  shall  under 
stand  the  young  people.  We  shall  be  gen 
tle  with  their  new  ideals  —  indeed,  we 
shall  be  more  than  this;  we  shall  be  re 
spectful  of  them. 

And  when  we  have  reached  this  point, 
behold  an  astonishing  thing:  we  are  not 
on  the  shelf  any  longer!  We  are  of  the 
elect. 

For  the  sign  of  the  elect  is  the  pos 
sibility  of  growth  in  ideals! 


AUNTS 

/CONSIDERING  mothers,  the  wonder 
V^rf  is  that  children  turn  out  as  well  as 
they  do.  And  considering  children,  the 
wonder  is  that  mothers  survive. 

Such,  at  least,  is  the  opinion  of  a  cloud 
of  witnesses  composed  of  those  who  have 
ceased  to  be  children,  and  have  not  be 
come  mothers.  "What,"  declares  the 
spinster  or  the  childless  mistress  of  a 
household — "what  will  happen  to  those 
awful  Jones  children?  How  will  they 
turn  out?  Mrs.  Jones  gives  them  abso 
lutely  no  training!"  And  then  she  looks 
at  Mrs.  Jones,  and  her  wonder  grows;  for 
the  demands  of  the  growing  Joneses  upon 
30 


AUNTS 

their  mother — their  noise,  their  mumps, 
their  clothes,  their  squabbles — are  enough, 
she  thinks,  to  send  Mrs.  Jones  into  her 
grave,  if  only  for  refuge. 

Yet  the  fact  is  Mrs.  Jones  survives. 
And  the  chances  are  that  the  children  will 
turn  out  fairly  well.  The  observer  ad 
mits  that  she  even  turned  out  fairly  well 
herself — though  she  was  once  a  child; 
and  her  own  mother,  bless  her  heart!  sur 
vived  to  be  many  times  a  grandmother. 

Now,  as  one  reflects  upon  the  anomaly 
of  children  who  ought  to  be  ruined,  but 
are  not,  and  mothers  who  ought  to  be 
dead,  but  are  not,  it  is  plain  that  there 
must  be  an  explanation,  and  some  people 
believe  that  the  explanation  is  found  in 
one  word:  Aunts. 

This  paper  is  an  appreciation  of  the 
aunt,  the  unmarried  sister  or  sister-in- 
law.  It  is  an  effort  to  show  that  she  is  the 
Buffer  of  civilization.  She  does  not  often 
recognize  her  important  function,  nor  do 


THE  COMMON  WAY 

other  people;  and  so,  naturally,  she  is  not 
always  valued  as  she  should  be.  Cer 
tainly  she  has  not  received  much  atten 
tion  either  sociologically  or  imaginative 
ly.  Science  has  concerned  itself  deeply 
enough  with  other  human  relationships; 
and  the  supremest  art  has  devoted  it 
self  to  their  expression — there  is  a  whole 
literature  of  paternity,  and  the  great 
pictures  of  the  world  are  of  motherhood 
and  brotherhood.  But  science  ignores 
aunts;  and  when  it  comes  to  the  arts, 
who  can  recall  a  work  of  art  which  seri 
ously  and  nobly  sets  itself  to  reveal  the 
genius  of  aunthood  ?  Not  one!  We  have 
Maggie  Tulliver's  aunts,  to  be  sure,  and 
Pierre  Loti  has  drawn  very  exquisitely 
the  tenderness  of  an  adult  for  the  mem 
ories  of  his  own  childhood  in  connec 
tion  with  a  gentle  old  creature,  la  tante 
Claire.  One  can  recall  a  dozen  such  in 
stances,  perhaps,  but  they  are  all  spo 
radic  ;  there  is  no  aunt  literature,  as  there 


AUNTS 

is  a  maternal,  or  filial,  or  amical  liter 
ature. 

And  yet  in  the  social  and  moral  world 
the  aunt  has  a  unique  importance ;  an  im 
portance  which  becomes  apparent  as  soon 
as  we  recognize  her  as  a  Buffer;  for  the 
moment  we  do  we  are  obliged  to  take  her 
seriously.  She,  meantime,  you  can  de 
pend  upon  it,  is  taking  us  seriously!  She 
looks  on  at,  let  us  say,  Mrs.  Jones's  do 
mestic  situation  and  wonders ;  she  has  her 
own  thoughts,  this  observing  aunt!  Mrs. 
Jones,  however,  or  any  mother  of  children, 
returns  the  aunt's  puzzled  look  with  equal 
wonder,  but  with  pity,  too;  because  a 
human  creature  who  suffers  the  empti 
ness  of  a  childless  life  is  an  object  of  pity. 

"I  think  old  maids  are  the  saddest 
things!"  the  mother  says,  toiling  up  stairs 
with  sleepy  Johnny  heavy  in  her  arms 
and  small  Mary  tugging  at  her  skirts,  and 
perhaps  the  two  older  children  howling 
in  the  sitting-room  because  the  biggest 
33 


THE  COMMON  WAY 

brother  has  snatched  their  picture-book 
away  from  them.  "  I  think  they  are  to  be 
pitied.  Nothing  to  do ;  nothing  to  love— 
except  other  people's  children.  My  hus 
band's  sister  adores  my  children,  of 
course,  and  I  must  say  she  is  an  immense 
help  to  me.  But  still,  it  isn't  as  if  they 
were  her  own,  poor  thing!" 

And  then  she  proceeds  to  put  her  little 
people  to  bed — to  wash  their  faces,  and 
hear  their  prayers,  and  tuck  them  up  for 
the  night;  then  she  goes  to  her  own  bed 
worn  out — and  happy.  She  has  no  com 
prehension  of  any  other  point  of  view. 
The  shrill  voices  down  -  stairs  did  not 
trouble  her;  the  destruction  of  things  (as 
destruction,  apart  from  expense)  did  not 
worry  her ;  her  own  fatigue  is  almost  deli 
cious  to  her.  Perhaps  she  falls  asleep  pity 
ing  ' '  Aunty ' ' ; — and  hidden  underneath  the 
pity  there  is  just  a  little  contempt,  too. 

This  every  good  woman  and  mother 
will  instantly  deny. 

34 


AUNTS 

' '  Contempt  for  Aunty  ?  Of  course  not ! 
but  I'm  sorry  for  her,  poor  thing!" 

All  the  same,  it  is  contempt,  and  it  is 
unavoidable.  It  is  probably  a  cosmic 
emotion,  far  deeper  than  Christian  ethics 
which  forbid  contempt  for  any  other  hu 
man  creature.  It  is  the  race  recognition 
that  something  is  wrong.  The  complete 
man  or  woman  must  know  the  complete 
gamut  of  the  elemental  human  experi 
ences,  and  the  childless  being  cannot  know 
it.  No  imagination  will  supply  to  such  a 
being  an  understanding  of  the  "passion 
of  the  dam";  no  sympathy  can  reveal  to 
her  soul  the  sense  of  immortality,  felt 
(unconsciously)  by  the  individual  who  is 
continued  and  continued  in  her  race. 
Both  these  things  may  be  accepted  by 
the  brain  of  the  childless  adult ;  but  they 
cannot  be  known  by  the  heart.  Of  course 
the  mother  does  not  go  through  any  such 
philosophical  explanation  of  her  pity  and 
her  unconscious  contempt.  She  sits  plac- 
35 


THE  COMMON  WAY 

idly  darning  the  children's  stockings  (the 
holes  in  the  knees  are  appalling!)  and 
says,  "It's  too  bad  about  Aunty." 

It  is.  But  not  entirely  in  the  way  the 
mother  means.  It  is  too  bad  that  Aunty 
is  incomplete;  it  is  too  bad  that  she  has 
not  known,  or  may  never  know,  the  great 
elemental  emotions  of  humanity  —  the 
love  of  man  and  woman,  the  passion  of 
maternity,  the  human  birthright  of  anx 
iety,  of  care,  of  grief,  of  supreme  joy  in 
the  deepest  human  relationships;  these 
things  are  indeed  too  bad.  But  it  is  also 
too  bad  that  the  mother  does  not  suffi 
ciently  appreciate  the  fact  that  Aunty's 
stultification  has  resulted  in  the  creation 
of  a  buffer. 

Of  course  there  are  mothers  here  and 
there  who  do  appreciate  it;  just  as  there 
are  aunts  whose  love  and  whose  joy  in 
service  leave  no  consciousness  of  fatigue 
or  ennui.  There  are  aunts  who  honestly 
prefer  to  hang  over  Johnny's  crib  when 

36 


AUNTS 

he  is  taking  his  noon  nap,  instead  of  go 
ing  out  to  luncheon;  aunts  who  find  it 
better  fun  to  play  with  children  not  their 
own  than  to  seek  an  amusement  personal 
to  themselves.  These  aunts  are  gener 
ally  very  young;  or  else  this  disposition 
on  their  part  is  shown  to  Johnny  because 
he  is  the  eldest,  rather  than  to  the  half- 
dozen  who  follow  Johnny  like  a  descend 
ing  flight  of  steps ;  or  perhaps  they  are  so 
potentially  maternal  that  human  young 
(plus  family  feeling)  are  irresistibly  at 
tractive  to  them.  Such  aunts,  with  sweet 
and  happy  unconsciousness  of  the  fact, 
are  probably  rehearsing  their  own  part 
of  motherhood,  to  be  played  (if  Heaven 
is  kind)  with  divine  joy  later  on.  But 
these  aunts  are  the  exception ;  just  as  the 
mothers  who  appreciate  their  Buffers  are 
the  exception.  The  ordinary  aunt — the 
good,  conscientious,  kindly,  affectionate 
woman,  who  is  tired,  or  bored,  or  critical, 
the  aunt  to  whom  mother  and  children 
37 


THE    COMMON    WAY 

cling  with  serene  selfishness — is  the  aunt 
of  whom  this  "Appreciation"  is  written. 
And  the  mother  to  whom  it  is  espe 
cially  dedicated  is  the  ordinary  mother — 
good,  too,  and  conscientious,  on  her  own 
lines;  a  little  dulled  by  maternity,  and 
full  of  the  dreadful  selfishness  of  human 
love — a  selfishness  which  can  be  as  in 
tense  as  the  selfishness  of  hate.  This 
mother  knows  that  her  husband's  sister 
is  devoted  to  the  little  Joneses;  and  she 
is  glad  of  it,  and  grateful  for  it  (because 
she  really  is  a  nice  woman) ;  but  she  is 
almost  always  unaware  that  her  sister-in- 
law  is  standing  between  her  and  the  on 
slaught  of  her  offspring;  standing  also 
between  her  offspring  and  her  own  ami 
able  slackness,  which  relations  -  in  -  law 
call  by  the  hard  name  of  spoiling.  For 
Aunty  has  her  own  opinions  about  these 
dear  children  (they  really  are  dear  to 
her) ;  and  sometimes  it  takes  all  her  good 
sense  to  refrain  from  sharing  her  opinion 

38 


AUNTS 

with  Mrs.  Jones.  Aunty  could  point  out 
to  her  sister-in-law  that  Johnny  sits  with 
his  mouth  open;  "gapes  at  you!"  Aunty 
says  to  herself.  That  May  holds  her 
spoon  awkwardly; — "I  wouldn't  let  a 
child  of  mine  have  such  table  manners!" 
That  the  two  older  children  have  very 
disagreeable  voices  and  shuffle  dreadfully 
with  their  feet.  Aunty,  being  wise,  keeps 
this  information  to  herself;  but  she  acts 
upon  it  when  she  is  alone  with  the  little 
Joneses! 

When  Aunty,  in  the  character  of  Buf 
fer,  steps  in,  and  says  to  Tom's  wife: 
"Now,  dear,  you  go  and  lie  down.  I'll 
take  care  of  the  children  this  afternoon," 
— she  does  so  not  merely  because  it  is  a 
joy  and  privilege  to  spend  several  hours 
in  the  society  of  the  little  Joneses.  She 
does  so  because  she  believes  it  to  be  her 
duty  to  help  Mrs.  Jones;  if  there  is  a  sec 
ond  reason,  it  may  be  for  the  fun  of  be 
ing  with  the  children.  But  that  second 
39 


THE  COMMON  WAY 

reason  does  not  always  exist;  the  first 
carries  Aunty  to  the  battle-ground  of  the 
nursery,  and  gives  the  mother  her  nap — 
the  nap  that  helps  her  to  finally  survive 
those  little  Joneses. 

So  all  the  long  afternoon  the  aunt  is  on 
hand  to  amuse  the  little  people;  but  also 
to  inculcate,  not  too  mildly,  rules  of  un 
selfishness  and  orderliness.  It  is  at  such 
times  that  she  takes  the  opportunity  to 
tell  Johnny  to  close  his  lips;  when  May 
has  her  bread  and  milk  at  five,  Aunty 
puts  the  little  fingers  under  instead  of 
over  the  spoon ;  she  shows  the  two  shuf 
fling  children  how  to  walk.  Thus,  silent 
ly,  patiently,  disgustedly  very  often,  does 
the  Buffer  fulfil  her  functions;  looking  on 
and  watching  the  children  while  they 
play  locomotive  cars  with  chairs  that 
screech  over  the  floor;  keeping  the  peace 
when  the  boys  scrap  for  the  same  picture- 
book  and  the  girls  take  Solomon's  plan 
for  sharing  a  doll ;  doing  her  part  in  fetch- 
40 


AUNTS 

ing  and  carrying;  pulling  mittens  over 
pudgy  and  apparently  boneless  little 
hands;  buttoning  gaiters;  finding  mis 
laid  hats;  afterwards  putting  all  these 
garments  away,  and  washing  dirty  faces 
and  squirming  ears ;  and  when  at  last  her 
brother's  wife  wakes  up,  refreshed  and 
ready  for  the  evening  fray,  retiring  from 
the  scene,  tired  out;  glad  that  she  has 
done  her  duty  to  mother  and  children; 
truly  fond  of  her  little  nieces  and  nephews, 
but  feeling,  perhaps  (inarticulately,  of 
course),  that  there  is  something  to  be 
said  for  Herod. 

Mrs.  Jones,  when  she  wakes  up  and 
comes  down  -  stairs  to  tea,  is  sincerely 
grateful — (because  she  is  a  nice  woman ;) 
but  there  are  nine  chances  in  ten  that  she 
thinks — if  she  thinks  at  all — that  the  after 
noon  has  meant  to  Aunty  just  what  it 
would  have  meant  to  her.  If  she  could 
only  look  into  Aunty's  mind  and  see  the 
hot  thoughts  of  reform  for  the  little  Jones- 
4  41 


THE  COMMON  WAY 

es,  how  astonished  she  would  be!  In 
stead,  the  very  next  day,  she  will  watch 
her  sister-in-law  plait  pigtails,  or  pin  on 
bibs,  or  cut  the  mutton  at  dinner  into 
small  cubes,  or  get  down  on  her  knees 
and  pull  on  tight  rubbers;  she  will  see 
her  hunt  up  old  paint-boxes,  and  pro 
duce  old  gift-books  or  new  magazines  to 
be  daubed  during  a  rainy  afternoon;  and 
she  will  look  on  as  if  it  were  all  a  matter 
of  course.  She  never  knows  that  Aunty 
is  controlling  an  impulse  to  express  a 
strong  opinion.  She  does  not  know  it, 
because  she  herself  would  not  mind  the 
squabbling,  or  the  noise  of  the  chairs;  she 
would  not  feel  annoyed  at  the  mislaid 
hats,  or  the  loose  button  -  holes  of  the 
gaiters,  or  the  touch  of  May's  sticky  fin 
gers  on  her  fresh  waist. 

In  fact,  unless  enlightened  by  Heaven 
or    a    candid    and    unprejudiced    friend, 
Mrs.  Jones  is  constitutionally  unable  to 
understand  the  feelings  of  her  Buffer. 
42 


AUNTS 

And  this  is  a  real  pity  about  Aunty. 

If  Mrs.  Jones  could  understand,  her  re 
sulting  appreciation  would  do  much  to 
tide  Aunty  over  many  bad  moments. 
The  Buffer,  going  home  alone  in  the  twi 
light,  falls  to  wondering  at  her  sister-in- 
law's  ability  to  bear  successive  after 
noons  such  as  this  she  has  just  passed; 
forgetting,  poor  girl  (for  she,  also,  does 
not  quite  understand  the  situation) — for 
getting  that  she  is  incomplete,  that  she 
is  without  that  prop  of  maternal  instinct 
which  makes  it  possible  to  endure  and 
even  to  enjoy  the  little  Joneses.  And 
makes  it  possible,  too,  to  be  blind  to 
their  defects — those  defects  so  obvious 
to  the  clear-eyed,  tired  aunt,  walking 
home  at  dusk,  and  thinking  what  she 
might  have  done  for  her  own  amusement 
or  edification  had  she  had  her  afternoon 
to  herself. 

Occasionally  (and  this  is  another  thing 
that  is  a  pity)  Aunty  does  not  have  any 
43 


THE  COMMON  WAY 

home  to  which  to  walk — she  lives  with 
the  Joneses.  This  is  unfortunate,  but, 
of  course,  sometimes  it  cannot  be  helped. 
Yet  how  infinitely  better  it  would  b£  for 
her  if  she  could  have  a  foot  on  the  earth, 
quite  of  her  own,  somewhere  outside 
Mrs.  Jones's  hospitable  little  roof — even 
if  it  were  a  single  room  under  somebody 
else's  roof,  to  which  she  could  retire  after 
a  day  on  the  field,  so  to  speak. 

"What!"  cries  Mrs.  Jones  —  "Aunty 
happier  not  to  live  with  Tom  and  me! 
Why,  I  never  heard  of  anything  so  hor 
rid.  She's  a  great  deal  better  off  here 
than  she  could  be  anywhere  else.  I'm 
sure  I  give  up  my  second  spare  room  to 
her,  and  I  do  everything  I  can;  but  still," 
Mrs.  Jones  says,  beginning  to  be  hurt, 
"perhaps  we  don't  give  her  enough." 

Well,  come  now:  what  do  Mr.  and  Mrs. 

Jones  give  Aunty?     To  begin  with,  her 

board  and  lodging;  the  privilege  of  being 

with  the  little  Joneses  every  minute  of 

44 


AUNTS 

the  day  (and  sometimes  night,  too,  if  the 
house  is  small).  The  joy  of  listening 
to  her  brother  and  sister-in-law's  talk 
about  their  own  affairs  or  cares,  about 
their  happiness  or  anxieties,  or  (occasion 
ally)  it  is  her  privilege  to  listen  to  their 
differences  and  squabbles.  When  Mrs. 
Jones  has  a  little  party  she  offers  Aunty 
the  chance  to  arrange  the  parlor  and  the 
flowers;  to  give  up  her  own  bedroom  as 
a  dressing-room  to  the  guests;  to  run  out 
a  dozen  times  into  the  kitchen  to  see  that 
things  are  going  smoothly,  and  to  make 
sure  that  the  ice-cream  is  taken  out  of 
the  moulds  at  the  proper  moment.  Mrs. 
Jones  also  gives  Aunty  the  opportunity 
to  help  with  the  weekly  mending.  "  But 
I'm  sure,"  Mrs.  Jones  flames  out  at  this, 
"  I  help  her  with  her  clothes !"  Of  course 
she  does,  when  she  has  time  (for  Mrs. 
Jones  is  a  nice  woman) ;  but  it  stands  to 
reason,  as  every  mother  knows,  that  she 
hasn't  very  much  time  to  help  with 
45 


THE  COMMON  WAY 

Aunty's  dress-making,  with  all  those  chil 
dren  on  her  hands. 

The  amount  of  it  is,  Aunty  receives  in 
her  brother's  house  such  scraps  of  life  as 
may  be  left  over. 

This  is  not  because  the  Joneses  are  un 
kind  or  ungenerous.  It  is  because  they 
are  human — that  is  all. 

The  family  life  is  and  must  and  ought 
to  be  the  first  thing.  Aunty  is  forever 
on  the  outside  of  it — by  a  law  of  nature, 
for  which  no  one  is  to  blame.  Wait  un 
til  she  gets  a  family  of  her  own,  then 
she  will  know  how  it  is  herself !  With  the 
best  intentions  in  the  world,  Mrs.  Jones 
cannot  make  an  outsider  an  insider. 
Therefore  Aunty  receives  in  the  good, 
kind,  conscientious  Jones  household  only 
what  it  is  able  to  give — namely,  second 
hand  joys  and  interests  and  duties.  And 
that  is  why,  if  she  can  add  even  a  very, 
very  small  income  to  her  excellent  com 
mon-sense,  she  will  go  away  and  find  a 
46 


AUNTS 

little  home  of  her  very,  very  own,  even 
if  it  is  only  one  room.  This  would  not 
lessen  her  love  for  her  nephews  and  nieces 
— indeed,  it  might  increase  it — nor  would 
it  make  her  any  less  anxious  for  their  well- 
being,  or  less  ready  to  act  as  their  Buffer. 
Well,  well;  poor  little  Mrs.  Jones!  It  is 
easy  enough  to  criticise ;  but  with  a  limited 
income,  and  a  small  house,  and  four  or 
five  children — how  can  she  do  as  much 
for  her  husband's  sister  as  she  would  like 
to,  and  how  can  she  give  those  five 
youngsters  the  training  and  discipline 
that  Aunty,  by  the  very  fact  and  grace 
of  being  an  outsider,  can  give  so  well? 
Nobody  means  to  blame  Mrs.  Jones  for 
not  telling  Johnny,  over  and  over,  twenty 
times  a  day,  to  close  his  lips;  or  not 
changing  May's  spoon  at  breakfast,  din 
ner,  and  supper;  or  for  not  calling  the 
two  others  back  two  or  three  times  an 
hour  to  walk  properly;  —  she  can't  do 
everything ! 

47 


THE  COMMON  WAY 

But  in  regard  to  Aunty  there  is  one 
thing  she  can  do:  she  can  set  herself  de 
liberately  to  see  how  all  these  things  look 
to  her  sister-in-law.  She  can  imagine — 
but  there!  that  is  the  secret  of  achieve 
ment  in  life:  imagination.  And  perhaps 
Mrs.  Jones  was  not  born  with  imagina 
tion,  or,  if  born  with  it,  she  has  permitted 
it  to  become  atrophied  for  want  of  use. 
Imagination  is  the  one  thing  that  most 
Mrs.  Joneses  need.  It  is  not  that  they 
are  unkind  to  Aunty,  or  more  than  ordi 
narily  selfish,  or  even  that  they  are  mere 
ly  indifferent  to  her  personal  happiness 
or  enjoyment.  It  is  that  they  do  not  ap 
ply  imagination  to  Iter  concerns.  They 
have  no  keen  realization  of  what  it  would 
mean  to  them  to  spend  their  lives  going 
up  and  down  other  people's  stairs! 

Let  the  mother,  some  tired  afternoon, 
when  Aunty  has  sent  her  off  for  a  much- 
needed  nap,  look,  open-eyed,  at  Aunty's 
lot;  let  her  ask  herself  even  one  question: 
48 


AUNTS 

1 '  How  would  I  like  to  take  care  of  the 
Robinson  children,  for  instance,  for  a 
whole  afternoon?"  "But  those  Robin 
sons  are  not  nearly  so  nice  as  my  chil 
dren!"  she  thinks,  instantly  resentful  at 
such  a  comparison. 

Perhaps  they  are  —  to  Mrs.  Robinson. 
Let  the  mother  work  out,  with  her  rusty, 
unused  imagination,  several  parallels  of 
this  kind,  and  she  will  begin  to  be  uncom 
fortable  about  Aunty;  she  will  not  take 
her  nap  on  that  particular  afternoon. 
Perhaps  she  will  even  be  slightly  unhappy 
for  a  day  or  two ;  but  that  won't  hurt  her, 
and  it  may  be  most  beneficial  for  Aunty. 
For  out  of  her  discomfort  (may  it  be  very 
keen !)  will  grow  certain  resolutions : 

First — Not  to  take  it  for  granted  that 
Aunty  likes  just  what  she  likes — at  least 
in  the  same  degree. 

Second — Not  to  take  it  for  granted  that 
Aunty  is  interested  in  her  interests — at 
least  in  the  same  degree. 
49 


THE  COMMON  WAY 

Third — Not  to  take  it  for  granted  that 
Aunty  is  particularly  favored  in  being 
privileged  to  live  under  the  Joneses'  roof 
— or  to  frequent  it  every  day  for  the  sake 
of  the  little  Joneses. 

Fourth — Never  to  forget  that  Aunty 
is  a  Buffer! 


THE   PASSING  OF  DORA 


THERE  has  arisen  a  generation  that 
knows  not  Dora.  And  more  than 
this,  taste  has  so  changed  that  even  if 
Dickens  were  to-day  the  household  word 
that  he  was  forty  years  ago,  so  that  a  ref 
erence  to  Dora  would  be  understood,  her 
name  would  only  arouse  the  comment  of 
Mr.  F.'s  aunt:  "7  hate  a  fool"',  for  Dora's 
prettiness  and  silliness  and  feebleness  are 
beyond  the  imagination  of  1904;  her 
charm  is  unintelligible. 

But  Dickens,  as  well  as  his  Dora,  is, 

for  the  most  part,  unknown.     Very  few 

young  people  nowadays  read  these  old 

novels — but  how  well  we  older  folk  know 

Si 


THE  COMMON  WAY 

them!  The  tall,  narrow  books,  bound 
in  black  and  gold,  with  execrable  type 
and  rough  wood-cuts,  are  dear  to  our 
souls;  and  what  friends  they  hold! — how 
well  we  know  David  Copperfield,  and 
Paul  Dombey,  and  Little  Nell,  and  Mr. 
Wemmick,  and  Pip — one  does  not  know 
where  to  stop  when  one  begins  to  name 
these  old  friends  with  whom  we  are  as  well, 
and  sometimes  better,  acquainted  than 
with  our  next-door  neighbor.  It  is  a 
little  startling  to  us  to  find  in  these  days 
an  allusion  to  the  "Boofer  Lady"  re 
ceived  with  a  puzzled  stare;  or  the  dec 
laration  that  one  "will  never  desert  Mr. 
Micawber,"  passed  over  without  a  twin 
kle  of  recognition.  The  fact  is  there  are 
so  many  books  of  to-day  that  the  books 
of  yesterday  cannot  be  re-read;  and  as 
for  the  books  of  day  before  yesterday, 
they  are  sold  for  waste  paper!  The  nov 
els  of  the  great  caricaturist  do  not  suffer 
this  last  fate,  as  convention  demands  their 
52 


THE  PASSING  OF  DORA 

presence  in  every  library;  but  the  dust 
gathers  on  their  tops  and  their  leaves 
are  yellowing  inside. 

To  the  elderly  folk,  whom  these  old 
books  enlightened  and  enlivened  a  gen 
eration  ago,  the  name  Dora  tells  a  story, 
foolish,  it  must  be  admitted,  absolutely 
unreal  in  the  electric  light  of  to-day,  but 
tender  and  touching,  and  with  a  peculiar 
charm  of  its  own. 

Dora — this  for  the  benefit  of  younger 
people — was  a  very  pretty,  very  foolish 
young  lady,  with  whom  Mr.  David  Cop- 
perfield  fell  distractingly  in  love.  A  con 
versation  between  them,  on  the  occasion 
of  David's  confiding  to  his  beloved  the  un 
promising  state  of  his  finances,  reveals  not 
only  his  love,  but  Dora's  mental  caliber: 

"Dora,  my  own  dearest!  I  am  a  beg 
gar!" 

"How  can  you  be  such  a  silly  thing," 
replied  Dora,  "as  to  sit  there  telling  such 
stories?     I'll  make  Jip  bite  you!" 
53 


THE  COMMON  WAY 

In  spite  of  this  threat,  David  persists  in 
telling  her  of  his  ruin ;  he  is  burning  with 
ardor,  and  full  of  joy  in  the  prospect  of 
working  for  her.  "A  crust  well  earned," 
cries  David;  at  which  Dora  bursts  out 
that  she  does  not  want  to  hear  about 
crusts;  "Jip  must  have  a  mutton  chop 
every  day  at  twelve  or  he  will  die!" 
David's  enthusiasm  is  dampened,  but  he 
promises  the  chop,  and  then  warms  again 
to  the  need  of  bravery  and  his  intention 
to  crush  obstacles.  At  this  Dora  turns 
faint,  cries,  moans;  she  is  so  overcome 
that  it  is  some  time  before  she  is  suf 
ficiently  calm  to  "make  Jip  stand  on  his 
hind  legs  for  toast." 

It  was  at  this  juncture  that  Dora's 
father,  with  obvious  common-sense,  for 
bade  an  engagement  between  these  two 
children;  but  a  kind  fate,  removing  him 
to  another  world,  gave  Dora  and  her 
dog  Jip  into  the  care  of  two  amiable  and 
sentimental  aunts,  who,  by-and-by,  in 
54 


THE  PASSING  OF  DORA 

spite  of  a  sense  of  the  impropriety  of 
love-making,  consented  to  an  engagement, 
and  after  a  while  the  babes  were  married 
and  departed  (with  Jip)  to  make  a  home 
of  their  own. 

Is  there  any  wonder  that  the  present 
generation  of  girls  does  not  know  Dora — 
or  care  to  make  her  acquaintance?  Ap 
parently  there  is  nothing  in  common  be 
tween  this  silly,  pretty,  useless  little  creat 
ure  and  our  strenuous  and  startlingly 
practical  young  woman,  whom  the  fash 
ion  of  the  day  calls  Jane  or  Sarah  or  some 
equally  uncompromising  name.  Jane  and 
Sarah  might  be  differentiated  yet  a  lit 
tle  further — Jane  being,  for  the  sake  of 
illustration,  the  girl  who  is  (as  a  boy 
called  her)  "shouting  athletic";  and 
Sarah,  a  college  graduate,  who  has  a 
healthy  instinct  for  out-of-door  life,  but 
who  has  also  domestic  inclinations  and 
great  common-sense.  Sarah  is  nearer  to 
Dora  than  is  Jane,  yet  even  between 
55 


THE  COMMON  WAY 

Sarah  and  Dora  there  is  a  marked  dif 
ference  in  ideals  and  standards;  this 
difference  shows  itself  early  in  Sarah's 
engagement.  .  .  . 

The  proposal  is  probably  as  palpitating 
as  was  David's  own;  it  is  blundering,  and 
perhaps  curt,  and  very  likely  slangy;  but 
the  two  hearts  beat  very  hard,  and  Sarah 
looks  down,  and  ties  her  handkerchief  in 
knots,  or  breaks  her  fan  to  pieces.  But 
when  Reginald  (as  the  girls'  names  grow 
austere,  the  boys'  names  are  becoming 
flowery) — when  Reginald  stammers  some 
thing  to  the  effect  that  he  never  saw  a 
girl  he — he  thought  so — so  corking  jolly, 
don't  you  know;  and  he  doesn't  suppose 
she  thinks  anything  of  him,  but — but 
won't  she  just  say  "yes,"  don't  you 
know  ?  When  Reginald  gets  these  words 
out  of  his  tight  throat,  Sarah  manages  to 
say,  very  low,  "  I — I  don't  mind,  Reggie." 
Then  Reginald  measures  her  finger  for  the 
ring,  and  kisses  it  during  the  operation; 

$6 


THE  PASSING  OF  DORA 

and  Sarah,  in  the  supreme  feminine  mo 
ment  of  happy  exultation,  lets  him  spoon 
to  his  heart's  content  —  but  not  indef 
initely.  Even  while  he  is  still  holding 
that  pretty  left  hand  she  begins  to  be  a 
little  silent,  a  little  sober;  she  is  thinking 
that  she  must  get  ready  for  the  respon 
sibilities  that  that  ring  will  imply.  She 
must  learn  how  to  do  this,  she  must  ask 
her  mother  how  to  manage  that;  she 
must  calculate  how  many  potatoes  and 
theatre  tickets  can  be  bought  on  Regi 
nald's  salary.  She  is  full  of  interest,  and 
very  much  in  earnest. 

As  the  engagement  proceeds  she  and 
Reginald  take  long  walks  in  the  moon 
light,  discussing  whether  it  will  be  more 
economical  for  him  to  take  luncheons 
at  a  restaurant  or  to  come  up  to  the 
flat  every  day  at  noon.  "I'll  see  you 
if  I  do  that,"  says  Reginald,  ardent 
ly;  "it's  worth  the  car -fare  to  see 
you!"  And  Sarah  says,  sternly,  blushing 
s  57 


THE    COMMON   WAY 

happily  in  the  moonlight,  "  Don't  be 
silly!" 

It  was  not  thus  that  Dora  took  her  en 
gagement.  The  silliness  that  Sarah  rep 
robates  in  Reginald  is  wisdom  compared 
with  Dora's  silliness.  Of  course  an  an- 
gaged  girl  is  expected  to  be  more  or  less 
foolish;  that  is  youth  and  human  nature 
all  the  world  over.  But  Dora's  foolish 
ness!  .  .  . 

David,  just  before  his  marriage,  pre 
sents  his  adored  with  a  cook-book,  a  set 
of  tablets,  and  some  pencils,  so  that  she 
might ' '  practise  housekeeping. ' '  Result  : 
"The  cookery  book  made  Dora's  head 
ache,  and  the  figures  made  her  cry.  They 
wouldn't  add  up,  she  said.  So  she  rubbed 
them  out,  and  drew  little  nosegays  and 
likenesses  of  me  and  Jip  all  over  the 
tablets.  Then,"  says  poor  David,  "  I 
playfully  tried  verbal  instruction  in  do 
mestic  matters.  .  .  .  Sometimes,  .  .  .  when 
we  passed  a  butcher's  shop,  I  would  say, 
S3 


THE  PASSING  OF  DORA 

'Now  suppose,  my  pet,  that  we  were 
married,  and  you  were  going  to  buy  a 
shoulder  of  mutton  for  dinner,  would  you 
know  how  to  buy  it?'  My  pretty  little 
Dora's  face  would  fall,  and  she  would 
make  her  mouth  into  a  bud  again,  as  if 
she  would  very  much  prefer  to  shut  mine 
with  a  kiss;  .  .  .  then  she  would  think  a 
little,  and  reply,  perhaps,  with  great 
triumph,  '  Why,  the  butcher  would  know 
how  to  sell  it,  and  what  need  /  know?'" 
No  wonder  that  Sarah,  going  faithfully 
to  cooking-school,  taking  lessons  in  house 
keeping,  hunting  up  the  cheap  shops  on 
the  side  streets  so  that  Reginald's  money 
shall  not  be  wasted  in  the  fine  stores  on 
the  avenue — no  wonder  that  she  sniffs  at 
the  mention  of  Dora,  and  declines  to  read 
about  her.  "I've  got  to  read  up  on  the 
chemistry  of  food,"  says  Sarah.  "I  find 
that  cheese  is  only  fourteen  cents  a  pound, 
and  porterhouse  steak  is  thirty  cents; 
but  cheese  supplies  all  the  nitrogen  that 
59 


THE   COMMON   WAY 

the  human  body  needs,  so  I'm  going  to 
buy  a  chafing-dish  (if  I  don't  get  a  silver 
one  for  a  wedding-present),  and  give 
Reggie  Welsh  rabbits  every  night." 

Poor  David  received  no  such  chemical 
consideration!  Dora's  housekeeping  was 
unimaginable. 

"My  dearest  life,"  David  said  one  day, 
"do  you  think  Mary  Anne  has  any  idea 
of  time?" 

"Why,  Doady?"  inquired  Dora. 

"My  love,  because  it's  five,  and  we 
were  to  have  dinner  at  four."  Then  the 
poor  hungry  husband  adds  that  perhaps 
his  little  wife  might  remonstrate  with 
Mary  Anne. 

"Oh  no,  please!     I  couldn't,  Doady!" 

"Why  not,  my  love?" 

"Oh,  because  I  am  such  a  little  goose," 
said  Dora,  "and  she  knows  I  am!"  (Here, 
at  least,  is  a  tribute  to  the  common-sense 
of  Mary  Anne.) 

But  David  still  urges,  mildly. 
60 


THE  PASSING  OF  DORA 

"No,  no!  please!"  cried  Dora,  with  a 
kiss;  "don't  be  a  naughty  Blue  Beard! 
Don't  be  serious!" 

" .  .  .  my  love,  it  is  not  exactly  comfort 
able  to  have  to  go  without  one's  dinner." 

"N-ri-no!"  replied  Dora,  faintly. 

"  My  love,  how  you  tremble!" 

"Because  I  know  you  are  going  to 
scold  me,"  exclaimed  Dora,  in  despair. 
"I  didn't  marry  to  be  reasoned  with." 

Poor  David!  This  is  not  silliness;  it  is 
idiocy.  At  least  so  it  would  be  called 
nowadays,  when  Sarah,  instead  of  weep 
ing  over  recipes,  would  have  gone  out  into 
the  kitchen  long  before  the  hour  of  wait 
ing  had  passed,  put  on  an  apron,  tucked 
up  her  sleeves,  and  cooked  a  delightful 
dinner  for  her  hungry  husband. 

But  just  here  some  old-fashioned  per 
son  asks  a  question:  Would  David  have 
been  quite  so  fond  of  such  a  capable, 
rational,  practical  Dora?  Fonder!  if  he 
had  any  sense,  cries  our  cooking-school 
61 


THE  COMMON  WAY 

Sarah,  with  quick  contempt  for  both  the 
silly  wife  and  the  fatuous  husband.  She 
has  no  sympathy  with  either  of  the  pair; 
furthermore,  she  cannot  even  understand 
the  situation.  They  are  both  fools;  that 
would  be  her  only  comment.  It  is  evi 
dent  that  the  feminine  ideal  of  which 
Dora  was  the  embodiment  has  gone  out 
of  fashion  as  completely  as  her  hoop- 
skirt  or  her  shawl  or  her  queer  little 
poke-bonnet ! 

As  for  Jane,  she  finds  Dora's  mental 
and  physical  qualities  even  more  un 
thinkable  than  Sarah  does,  for  Sarah's 
domestic  instinct  supplies  a  certain  half- 
maternal  pity  for  what  is  weak  and  help 
less,  even  if  it  is  accompanied  by  idiocy. 
Jane  would  treat  Dora  as  a  roaring  joke — 
if  one  may  quote  Jane's  own  words.  Her 
vocabulary  is  limited,  and  it  might  be  a 
"howling  joke,"  or,  if  she  is  a  very  highly 
developed  Jane,  "a  rotten  joke."  The 
mere  picture  of  Dora  would  send  Jane  into 
62 


THE  PASSING  OF  DORA 

"yells  of  laughter" — (still,  for  the  sake  of 
exactness,  to  quote  Jane  herself).  Yet, 
though  Jane  can  hardly  believe  it,  her 
father  —  or  certainly  her  grandfather  — 
finds  Dora's  picture  hidden  somewhere  in 
his  heart — and  he  thinks  it  far  more 
charming  than  the  latest  snap  -  shot  of 
Jane  herself,  standing,  hatless,  bare-arm 
ed,  feet  well  apart,  raising  her  brassey  for 
a  whizzing  stroke.  In  this  old  picture, 
Dora  is  clinging  to  the  arm  of  her  proud 
and  tender  David;  her  little  bonnet  is 
very  far  back  on  her  head ;  her  curls  are 
brought  forward  over  her  pretty,  blush 
ing  cheeks  and  shadow  her  clear  and 
very  gentle  eyes  —  eyes  that  fill  with 
tears  at  a  hard  word  or  a  sharp  look ;  she 
wears  an  enormous  crinoline,  and  her 
frock  is  ruffled  up  to  her  waist;  her  little 
feet  are  thrust  into  slippers  that  fasten 
with  a  crossed  elastic  around  her  ankles, 
and  sometimes  a  scarf  hangs  across  her 
shoulders  or  a  fan  dangles  from  her  wrist ; 

63 


THE   COMMON   WAY 

and  she  holds  a  smelling-bottle — for  Dora 
grows  faint  very  often,  and  even  swoons 
occasionally. 

"Hang  it!"  says  Jane,  irritated  to  be 
obliged  to  contemplate  this  ridiculous 
picture,  "she's  a  perfect  idiot!" — (Jane's 
language  would  not  lead  one  to  infer  that 
she  ever  had  a  grandfather!  Yet  the 
fact  is,  she  is,  generally  speaking,  a  well 
born  girl,  her  father  and  mother  being 
persons  of  refinement  and  cultivation, 
who  shiver  at  her  slang  and  make  futile 
attempts  to  check  it). 

If  Jane  herself  may  be  considered  a  pat 
tern  of  what  a  girl  ought  to  be,  her  com 
ment  upon  Dora  is  not  unreasonable, 
though  it  may  be  inelegant;  but  Jane 
cannot  bother  about  elegance  any  more 
than  about  femininity.  Jane,  with  a 
whimpering  mother  in  the  background, 
has  done  her  best  to  eliminate  femininity. 
She  dresses  as  much  like  the  boys  as  she 
dares;  she  uses  their  slang;  she  plays  their 
64 


THE  PASSING  OF  DORA 

games;  she  imitates  their  hare-brained 
pluck,  their  apparently  stolid  indifference 
to  prettiness  and  daintiness;  she  dreads 
being  ladylike  quite  as  much  as  they  do. 
She  is  a  first-rate  companion  when  a  man 
is  roughing  it ;  she  can  pick  up  her  end  of 
the  canoe  on  a  long  carry  as  well  as  the 
next  fellow ;  she  can  play  her  eighteen  holes 
without  a  pause;  she  doesn't  fuss  about 
clothes;  she  is  rough-haired,  brown -arm 
ed,  loud-voiced.  Reginald  would  have 
an  armful  if,  like  David,  he  should  at 
tempt  to  lift  her  over  a  brook  that  she 
might  not  wet  her  little  feet;  but,  for  that 
matter,  Jane's  feet  are  not  little,  and  her 
heavy,  hob-nailed  walking-boots  spare 
him  any  such  weighty  necessity.  Besides, 
she  could  carry  Reginald  almost  as  easily 
as  he  could  carry  her!  In  fact,  she  ap 
parently  differs  from  him  only  in  the 
bitter  fact  that  convention  insists  that 
she  shall  wear  petticoats. 

And  what  is  the  result?     Except  to 

65 


THE    COMMON    WAY 

her  humiliated  mother  and  shocked  fe 
male  relations  she  is  a  "good  fellow." 
There  is  no  possible  doubt  of  that.  ' '  Does 
Reginald  like  her?"  inquires  again  the 
old-fashioned  and  doubtful  voice.  In 
deed  he  does!  He  finds  her  very  com 
fortable  to  get  along  with;  he  does  not 
have  to  take  any  trouble  when  he  is  with 
her;  he  feels  no  restraint  in  manners  or 
conversation.  He  reclines  on  the  canoe 
cushions  puffing  cigarette  smoke  into  her 
face  while  she  does  the  paddling.  "Yes," 
he  was  heard  to  say  recently  on  the  porch 
of  a  summer  hotel — "yes,  the  girls  are 
first-rate,  don't  you  know;  they're  cork 
ing  jolly  to  go  off  with;  but,"  he  rumi 
nated,  scowling  out  from  under  a  shock 
of  yellow  hair  as  rough  and  sunburned  as 
Jane's  own,  "they  ain't  the  kind  that's 
makin'  a  fellow  feel  romantic,  don't  you 
know?" 

Ah,  Reggie,  how  right  you  are!    "  They 
ain't  makin'  you  feel   romantic!"     And 
66 


THE  PASSING    OF  DORA 

you  want  to  feel  romantic;  the  "other 
fellow"  is  well  enough;  "corking  jolly  to 
go  off  with";  but  life  is  not  made  up  of 
"going  off,"  and  you  do  want  something 
else. 

It  is  here  that  David's  grandson  is 
really  more  honest  and  wholesome  than 
Dora's  granddaughter  —  he  is  true  to  the 
everlasting  masculine,  and  makes  no  pre 
tence  to  anything  else.  He  respects  Jane 
just  as  he  would  a  man  on  his  own  team ; 
and  he  takes  about  as  much  trouble  to 
make  himself  agreeable  to  her  as  he  would 
to  the  man.  He  is  far  more  courteous 
to  Sarah ;  and  as  for  his  behavior  to  some 
pretty  creature  who  shrinks  at  the  sight 
of  a  caterpillar,  and  is  afraid  of  thunder, 
and  could  not  lift  the  bow  end  of  a  canoe 
to  save  her  life — he  is  David  over  again ! 
There  is  apt  to  be  a  brief  period  when 
Reginald  prefers  the  pretty  goose  even  to 
Sarah ;  and  for  a  time  he  talks  about  her 
to  Jane,  who  sympathizes  with  him,  and 

67 


THE  COMMON  WAY 

gives  him  good  advice.  And  in  this  con 
nection  behold  a  fact  as  old  and  as  un 
reasonable  as  human  nature: — a  man 
does  not  marry  a  woman  because  she  is 
able  to  give  good  advice.  This  shows,  no 
doubt,  the  foolishness  of  men;  but  it  is 
the  truth,  and  has  to  be  taken  into  ac 
count  when  one  wonders  why  it  is  that 
Jane  does  not,  as  a  rule,  marry  as  early 
as  Sarph,  or  even  as  some  prehistoric  and 
exasperatingly  feminine  goose. 

There  is  one  thing  to  be  said,  however, 
for  Jane:  although  she  gives  good  advice, 
and  talks,  man  to  man,  about  the  goose, 
and  sympathizes  in  her  rough  way  with 
the  sighing  lover,  she  does  it  sometimes 
with  a  strange  burning  in  her  own  heart. 
And  it  is  in  this  little  stinging,  unac 
knowledged,  despised  pain  that  Jane's  fut 
ure  salvation  lies.  It  may  not  save  her 
until  her  hard  and  angular  youth  has  faded 
into  middle-aged  singleness;  but  then  it 
will  probably  become  so  keen  that  it  will 
68 


THE  PASSING  OF  DORA 

turn  her  into  a  positive  Lydia  Languish! 
She  must  take  lessons  from  Dora  in  time  if 
she  would  spare  us  that  horror.  Not  in 
Dora's  imbecility,  but  in  certain  qualities 
fundamental  to  life,  which  made  the  pure 
gold  of  Dora's  character. 

But  very  likely  that  is  too  much  to  ex 
pect;  Jane  is  so  supremely  satisfied  with 
herself  that  she  will  only  realize  she  is  an 
artificial  being  when  artificiality  has  be 
come  natural,  and  the  loud,  horsy  girl  has 
stiffened  into  a  loud,  horsy  spinster — 
most  unlovely  and,  too  often,  unlovable. 

The  fact  is,  we  must  build  our  hopes 
for  the  future  upon  our  boys'  unchanged, 
wholesome,  honest  masculinity  —  a  mas 
culinity  which  rejects  the  unsexed  wom 
an,  and  creates  for  women  a  standard  of 
gracious  and  intelligent  goodness;  just  as 
the  normal  woman's  demand  for  truth 
and  courage  and  tenderness  creates  a 
standard  for  men.  Sarah  recognizes  this 
standard  of  moral  and  intellectual  sweet- 


THE   COMMON   WAY 

ness,  though  she  embodies  it  in  a  some 
what  rudimentary  form;  but  Jane — will 
Jane  ever  see  that  good  health  does  not 
necessarily  imply  rough,  sunburned  arms; 
that  good-fellowship  does  not  involve 
loud  voices,  or  "loud  mouths,"  as  the 
boys  call  the  girls'  slang;  that  good  sense 
does  not  demand  all  lack  of  reserve  in 
conversation?  Will  she  ever  acquire 
charm  ? — the  word  that  sums  up  all  those 
qualities  of  heart  and  head  and  brings 
into  the  world  of  toil  and  sport  and  busi 
ness  something  which  we  call  loveliness? 

Nobody  wants  Dora's  silliness  or  use- 
lessness ;  but  her  fundamental  femininity — 
that  the  world  does  want,  and  indeed  will 
have,  for  nature  can  probably  be  trusted 
to  make  Jane  extinct. 

Sarah  has  long  since  perceived  what 
poor  little  Dora  never  could  have  perceived, 
that  the  heart  alone  is  idiotic;  she  knows, 
though  she  may  not  talk  about  it,  that 
the  head  alone  is  unlovely  and  unlovable. 
70 


THE  PASSING  OF  DORA 

With  these  two  things  in  her  sensible 
brain  Sarah  will  draw  a  swift  conclusion: 
graciousness  and  love  and  honor,  the  de 
light  of  sweet  reasonableness,  make  the 
ideal  woman;  they  are  the  combination 
of  heart  and  head  which  is  the  perfect 
human  life. 

May  Jane's  eyes  open  to  the  same  fact! 


"LOVE  MY  DOG 


THERE  are  some  people  in  this  world 
who  do  not  believe  that  Love  and 
Quarrelling  are  ever  united.  Such  lucky 
folk  grow  joyously  dogmatic  upon  the 
subject:  To  put  Love  and  Quarrelling 
together,  they  declare,  is  to  set  down  a 
contradiction  in  terms! 

It  is  generally  a  woman  who  ventures 
upon  such  blithe  optimism,  and  if  pressed 
for  proof  she  says,  cheerfully:  "Why,  if 
you  love  people,  you  can't  quarrel  with 
them.  I  never  in  my  life  quarrelled  with 
anybody  I  loved!"  Which  reveals  to  the 
envious  listener  that  there  are  some  tem 
peraments  (generally  feminine)  which 
72 


''LOVE  MY  DOG" 

must  needs  make  personal  experience  the 
basis  of  opinion.  There  is  a  bit  of  gossip 
concerning  a  husband  and  wife  that  il 
lustrates  this  feminine  inclination:  Said 
the  husband  (a  little  sharply),  "Women 
make  everything  personal ! ' '  Replied  the 
wife  (a  little  pathetically),  "/  don't." 

Yet  the  happy  folk  who  believe  that 
Love  may  not  know  bitterness  and  anger 
and  revenge  must  have  heard  the  apho 
risms  and  proverbs  that  confess  the  ex 
perience  of  The  Race:  "There  is  no  quar 
rel  so  bitter  as  a  family  quarrel"; 
"Cain  and  Abel";  "Lovers'  quarrels," 
etc.,  etc.  When  the  Optimist  hears 
these  sayings  she  is  quick  to  retort  that 
when  husbands  and  wives,  and  fathers  and 
sons,  and  brothers  and  sisters  quarrel, 
it  merely  means  they  do  not  love  each 
other.  When  this  statement  is  made, 
it  is  just  as  well  to  bring  the  conversa 
tion  to  a  close,  for  the  Optimist  has  re 
vealed  her  absolute  ignorance  of  life. 

6  73 


THE    COMMON    WAY 

And,  anyhow,  it  is  far  better  to  let  such 
happy,  unbelieving  folk  alone  than  try 
to  teach  them  bitter  truths.  If  Heaven 
has  spared  them  this  particular  knowl 
edge  of  our  poor,  squalid,  divine,  human 
nature,  with  its  strange  contradictions 
of  good  and  bad — if  hard  experience  or 
pitiful  sympathy  has  not  revealed  to 
them  that  Love  may  sometimes  walk, 
unworthily,  hand  in  hand  with  anger 
and  spite,  they  may  be  ignorant,  but  they 
are  certainly  comfortable.  And  it  is 
pleasant  to  know  that  somebody  is  com 
fortable! — even  though  the  big  world 
outside  is  lying  travailing  in  sorrow  and 
pain. 

And  yet  comfort  is  not  the  best  thing 
in  life,  after  all.  It  is  not  the  highest 
thing.  Wisdom  is  better  than  ease.  And 
in  this  strange  paradox  of  Love  and 
Quarrelling  that  thoughtful  and  sorry 
people  see  or  experience,  wisdom  is  our 
only  refuge.  Wisdom  does  not  deny  the 
74 


"LOVE   MY  DOG" 

miserable  fact  of  quarrelsome  Love;  it 
faces  it  and  admits  it  and  explains  it. 
Wisdom  tracks  down  the  quarrelsome 
instinct,  and  finds  it  rooted  in  egotism;  it 
tracks  down  human  passion,  and  finds 
it  rooted  in  self;  it  tracks  down  the  ten- 
derest  devotion,  and  finds  it,  obscurely, 
but  still  surely,  rooted  in  this  same  or 
ganic  base  of  human  living.  And  as  soon 
as  sore  and  angry  and  loving  people  can 
realize  that  one  human  quality  can  be 
responsible  for  two  such  cruelly  different 
emotions  as  love  and  anger,  they  can 
with  a  reasonable  amount  of  hope  go  to 
work  to  make  things  better. 

One  admits  at  once  that  egotism  is  not 
a  pretty  word.  The  Optimist  frantically 
repudiates  it,  at  least  for  Love.  And  for 
Quarrelling,  too:  "If  I  quarrel,"  she  says, 
"it  is  only  because  I  know  I  am  right;  it 
isn't  egotism,  it  is  principle,  with  me! 
It  is  never  for  any  merely  selfish  end. 
And  that  just  proves  that  I  couldn't 
75 


THE  COMMON   WAY 

quarrel  with  any  one  I  loved,  because  I 
always  give  in  at  once.  That  is  my 
pleasure,"  she  adds,  piously. 

Happy  Optimist  to  have  an  ego  that 
prefers  to  give  in !  Yet,  after  all,  the  pref 
erence  for  giving  in,  although  a  more 
pleasing  form  of  egotism  than  is  common 
ly  prevalent,  is  still  egotism — personal  in 
clination  is  responsible  for  this  agreeable 
trait.  However,  the  Optimist  will  never 
admit  this ;  and  it  is  as  provoking  a  state 
ment  as  that  "unselfishness  is  a  form  of 
selfishness,"  or  any  other  philosophical 
abstraction  which  leads  so  easily  to  a 
moral  reductio  ad  absurdum.  It  is  enough 
to  say  that  when  Love  quarrels  with  its 
beloved,  it  is  generally  from  an  instinct 
to  thrust  upon  the  beloved  its  own  ideals 
or  hopes  or  purposes;  it  is  a  demand  for 
unity.  Now,  the  "demand  for  unity" 
is  the  very  heart  and  soul  of  Love. 
But  it  is  also  all  there  is  to  Quarrel 
ling. 


"LOVE  MY  DOG'1 

There  is  a  certain  little  foolish  saying 
that  sums  it  all  up — 

"  Love  me,  love  my  dog." 

"You  love  me!  you  are  mine! — then 
you  will  think  my  thoughts,  love  my 
loves,  desire  my  desires — you  will  be  one 
with  me.  No?  You  can't?  You  don't 
agree  with  me  in  religion  ?  in  politics  ? 
You  don 't  agree  with  me  about  our  grand 
father's  will  ?  about  impressionist  pict 
ures?  about  the  best  method  of  making 
bread  ?  the  state  of  the  weather  ?  the  way 
I  wear  my  hair  ?  Good  heavens !  do  you 
call  that  love?  You  must  agree  with 
me;  you  shall!"  Clash!  clamor!  struggle! 
Misery,  bitterness  —  court -rooms,  even. 
And  underneath,  Love. 

This  is  egotism — the  primal  human 
passion  which  created  Love,  and  at  the 
same  time  hammered  into  every  language 
phrases  about  Love  and  Quarrelling ;  ego 
tism,  which  means  individuality,  and 
without  which  we  would  be  but  poor, 
77 


THE    COMMON    WAY 

soft  things  of  elemental  jelly — but  which 
is  responsible  for  the  cruelest  pain  poor 
Love  can  suffer. 

Just  see  how  it  is  all  about  us — ex 
cept  in  the  household  of  that  blessed 
Optimist.  .  .  .  One  need  not  think  of  the 
dreadful  illustrations,  the  awful  things 
that  must  needs  take  the  court-room  as 
a  stage,  but  the  hundreds  of  home  hap 
penings,  the  bickerings  and  fault-find 
ings  and  small  quarrels  that  we  see  or 
hear  about  us.  The  Optimist  has  no 
personal  experience  with  them,  and  for 
that  let  her  thank  God ;  but  she  must  be 
aware  that  in  her  brother-in-law's  fam 
ily  the  girls  are  always  squabbling;  and 
that  her  next-door  neighbor  doesn't  get 
on  with  his  eldest  son ;  and  that  poor  Mr. 
Smith  has  a  lot  to  bear  from  Mrs.  Smith's 
tongue.  The  Optimist  knows  these 
things  perfectly  well ;  and  she  also  knows 
that  her  brother-in-law's  girls  do  really 
love  each  other.  Just  look  at  the  way 

78 


"LOVE   MY  DOG" 

the  eldest  girl  took  care  of  the  youngest 
one  when  she  broke  her  ankle;  why,  she 
was  perfectly  devoted!  As  for  that 
father  next  door,  of  course  he  loves  his 
boy;  he  fairly  starved  himself  to  death 
to  put  the  fellow  through  college;  he 
would  do  anything  for  him!  Mrs.  Smith 
— yes,  even  Mrs.  Smith,  with  her  sharp 
tongue  to  that  poor,  long-suffering  man 
—Mrs.  Smith  loves  her  husband;  why, 
she  would  lie  down  and  let  him  walk  over 
her.  She,  too,  "would  do  anything" 
for  him;  except,  it  appears,  let  the  un 
fortunate  man  alone. 

In  every  one  of  these  cases,  as  the  honest 
Optimist  admits,  there  is  real  Love;  but 
when  she  looks  deeply  enough  she  will 
find,  in  every  case,  that  Love,  with  pro 
found  egotism,  is  insisting  upon  unity. 

There  are  households  founded  in  Love 

where  Love  sometimes  commits  actual 

suicide  by  this  wicked  insistence.     Each 

separate,  loving,  tumultuous,  angry  heart 

79 


THE  COMMON  WAY 

is  saying,  "You  must  love  my  dog!  You 
must  think  as  I  do,  you  must  believe 
as  I  do,  you  must  hate,  even,  as  I  do!" 
It  is  not  uninstructive  to  run  little  quar 
rels  down,  once  in  a  while,  and  find  their 
root  in  this  passionate  demand  of  true 
and  tender  Love  for  unity.  .  .  . 

Take,  for  instance,  that  family  of  girls 
with  their  everlasting  bickering.  It  is 
so  much  a  matter  of  course  with  them 
that  very  often  they  are  hardly  conscious 
of  it.  But  the  Optimist  once  tried  visit 
ing  in  that  house,  and  the  memory  of 
those  few  days  or  weeks  is  a  nightmare! 
If  only  the  girls  could  know  the  embar 
rassment  and  mortification  that  a  visitor 
feels  who  listens  to  their  quarrels!  She 
would  like  to  escape  to  her  room,  but  if 
flight  is  impossible  she  assumes  a  sickly 
smile  and  tries  to  look  as  though  it  were 
all  a  joke;  but  she  knows  it  is  not  a  joke, 
and  she  vows  silently  that  she  will  never 
visit  these  people  again.  Quarrels  in  this 
80 


"LOVE  MY  DOG" 

household  begin  almost  always  in  that 
most  pernicious  habit  of  domestic  criti 
cism  which  is  so  frequent  even  in  families 
of  the  better  class.  "You  are  a  perfect 
fright  in  that  dress,"  Ethel  tells  Margaret, 
candidly;  and  Margaret  retorts,  "Well, 
you're  not  a  beauty  yourself  in  that  ridic 
ulous  new  hat  of  yours."  If  the  Opti 
mist  had  not  heard  remarks  of  this  kind 
in  a  household  of  educated,  cultivated, 
charming  women  —  (Christian  women, 
too,  they  call  themselves) — she  would  not 
have  believed  that  these  comments  were 
made  by  ladies.  But  they  were,  and 
others  like  them;  and  after  a  few  more 
such  stupid  vulgarities  there  springs  out  a 
bitter  flame  of  anger,  a  loud  and  silly  quar 
rel  that  makes  the  poor  visitor  crimson 
with  shame  at  the  mean  and  miserable 
scene.  And  yet  Ethel  did  nurse  Margaret 
with  a  tenderness  that  was  perfectly 
beautiful!  They  love  each  other,  these 
two  flushed  and  foolish  girls;  their  love 
81 


THE  COMMON  WAY 

has  been  proved  by  cheerful  self-sacrifice 
dozens  of  times;  "but  why  on  earth  do 
they  quarrel  so?"  the  visitor  thinks, 
shivering. 

The  explanation  is  obvious  enough; 
Ethel  loves  Margaret;  she  wants  her  to 
look,  and  be,  her  very  best.  Ethel's  idea 
of  Margaret's  looks  involves  a  certain 
sort  of  gown ;  she  says  so,  forcibly.  Mar 
garet,  however,  has  her  own  idea;  she 
protects  it,  and  turns  the  attack  upon 
Ethel's  hat,  which  does  not  do  Ethel  jus 
tice. 

The  fact  is,  underneath  the  squalid 
Actual  of  egotism  the  Ideal  is  noble:  "  Be 
one  with  me!"  Love  is  crying,  "Think 
as  I  do;  feel  as  I  do.  You  shall!"  If 
the  beloved's  egotism  is  equally  strong, 
Love's  demand  results  in  fireworks  of 
temper. 

The  quarrelling  between  the  father  and 
son  is  even  more  clearly  Love's  cry  for 
unity.  "I  don't  understand  it,"  the  de- 
82 


"LOVE  MY   DOG" 

spairing  father  says  about  his  boy;  "I'm 
sure  I  only  want  Bob's  own  good.  Why, 
bless  my  soul!  I've  given  up  my  life  to 
that  boy.  No  man  ever  did  more  for 
his  son  than  I've  done  for  mine.  Of 
course,  I'm  not  a  rich  man,  but  there 
are  mighty  few  rich  men's  sons  that  have 
had  any  more  advantages  than  my  Bob 
has  had.  I've  worked  myself  to  death 
to  give  them  to  him!  And  now  here  he 
is,  setting  up  his  own  Ebenezer,  and  say 
ing  he  wants  to  go  into  some  tomfool 
speculation,  instead  of  settling  down  here 
in  the  business  I  built  up  for  him.  Well, 
he  can  do  it.  Let  him  try  earning  his  own 
bread-and-butter.  I'm  blest  if  I  give  him 
a  cent  if  he  chooses  to  turn  up  his  nose 
at  my  business." 

How  well  we  all  know  this  poor  house 
hold!  How  well  we  know  the  mother's 
efforts  to  "  smooth  things  over,"  the  di 
vided  sympathy  of  the  sisters,  the  com 
placent  condolences  of  relatives  —  who 
83 


THE  COMMON  WAY 

always  knew  that  Bob  wouldn't  turn  out 
well,  his  father  spoiled  him  so.  But  how 
clearly  it  all  comes  from  Love's  demand 
for  unity.  "  Be  one  with  me,"  the  father's 
heart  says;  "it  will  be  best  for  you;  it 
will  be  happier  for  me."  Poor,  pathetic 
father's  heart,  with  its  pleading,  deter 
mined  egotism !  what  can  the  outcome  be, 
when  his  demand  for  unity  hurls  itself 
against  youth's  inexperienced  but  equal 
ly  determined  egotism  ?  Bob's  sulky  in 
sistence  upon  a  foolish  course,  and  his 
father's  foolish  wisdom  in  forcing  him 
into  what  is  good  for  him,  result  too  often 
in  permanently  hurt  feelings;  often  in  a 
loud  and  bitter  quarrel  that  sometimes — 
sometimes — is  never  forgiven.  This  last 
is  especially  apt  to  be  the  case  when  the 
father,  by  force  majeurc,  finally  gets  his 
own  way,  and  the  lad,  without  the  salu 
tary  lesson  of  an  unpleasant  experience 
of  his  own,  buckles  down  to  what  he  does 
not  want  to  do. 

84 


"LOVE   MY  DOG" 

And  then  take  those  Smiths.  There 
is  no  situation  where  Love  so  persistently 
and  foolishly  —  even  madly  —  demands 
unity  as  in  married  life.  Mrs.  Smith 
loves  Mr.  Smith  so  much  that  she  lives 
only  to  prove  to  him  that  his  welfare 
depends  on  loving  her  dog.  She  lives 
only  to  make  him  good  or  comfortable 
or  healthy — in  her  way.  Sometimes,  in 
her  case,  Love's  demand  is  for  unity  in 
religion  (or,  rather,  in  theology) ;  and  Mr. 
Smith's  disinclination  to  go  to  church 
causes  the  sincere,  narrow  wTife  a  deep 
and  frightened  pain;  she  argues  and  en 
treats;  she  even  (not  being  very  well 
bred) — she  even  scolds.  Sometimes  it  is 
a  demand  for  unity  of  judgment  as  to 
health;  she  nags  Mr.  Smith  about  exer 
cise  or  health  -  food  until  the  poor  man 
would  rather  be  in  his  grave  and  be  done 
with  it!  Sometimes  it  is  only  a  wish  to 
be  united  on  the  idea  of  comfort ;  and  he 
is  bidden  to  take  a  certain  chair,  or  wear 

85 


THE  COMMON  WAY 

flannel  or  cotton  or — sackcloth!  so  that 
he  shall  be  as  well  as  Mrs.  Smith  prays 
that  he  may  be.  The  quarrels  that 
spring  from  these  well  -  meant  demands 
are  heart-breaking.  Just  plain,  every 
day  wickedness  may  result  from  the 
woman's  religious  egotism;  nervously 
ruined  health  is  a  frequent  outcome  of 
well-meant  hygienic  advice;  and  as  for 
discomfort — is  there  any  discomfort  com 
parable  to  other  people's  ideas  of  com 
fort?  Yet  all  the  while  Love  stands 
clamoring  for  unity  to  the  incessant  and 
miserable  accompaniment  of  quarrels.  .  .  . 
Every  man  and  woman  of  us  who  has 
lived  long  enough  to  gain  wisdom  by  ex 
perience  will  be  obliged  to  admit  this 
strange,  sad  union  of  Love  and  Quarrel 
ling;  but  every  one  of  us  who  has  lived 
deeply  enough  will  know  that  experience 
worketh  hope,  and  will  admit  that  when 
Love  quarrels  with  its  beloved  it  is  only 
because  this  noble  ideal  of  unity  has  run 
86 


"LOVE  MY   DOG" 

off  the  track,  so  to  speak;  a  virtue  has 
gone  to  seed;  a  divine  quality  has  de 
veloped  a  defect.  The  outlook  for  quar 
relsome  Love  is  not  so  hopeless  when  we 
can  understand  this.  See  how  it  would 
work  if  those  two  squabbling  sisters  would 
either  of  them  stop  to  remember  that  it 
is  only  Love,  foolish,  exasperating,  un 
balanced  Love,  that  is  responsible  for  the 
ill-bred  domestic  criticism  that  spoils  the 
home  life.  If  Margaret  once  honestly  be 
lieved  that  Ethel's  love  made  her  so  un 
pleasant,  she  would  stop  aghast;  amused, 
no  doubt,  but  very  likely  touched,  and  al 
most  certainly  silenced.  And  that  would 
be  the  end  of  the  quarrel. 

It  is  just  the  same  thing  with  the  boy 
and  his  father;  but  in  this  case  the  un 
derstanding  and  forbearance  must  come 
mostly  from  the  father,  for  youth,  in  the 
nature  of  things,  has  developed  only  a 
most  rudimentary  Love  out  of  egotism. 
Yet  just  suppose  the  father  had  the  cour- 
87 


THE   COMMON   WAY 

age  and  the  patience  to  say,  "Well,  go 
ahead,  my  dear  fellow,  on  your  own  lines, 
if  you  must."  And  then  wait  for  the  dis 
illusioned  home-coming,  with  its  hearty, 
fatted  -  calf  appetite,  and  its  enduring 
friendship  between  father  and  son. 

In  the  case  of  the  husband  and  wife, 
Mr.  Smith's  realization  that  Mrs.  Smith's 
most  trying  ways  spring  from  this  poor, 
crazy  Love  of  hers  would  certainly  help 
him  to  be  patient.  But,  after  all,  the 
woman  has  the  cure  in  her  own  hands. 
Not  in  a  lesser,  but  a  greater,  Love.  Not 
in  contentment  with  a  lack  of  unity,  but 
in  an  ideal  of  unity  so  large  that  it  holds 
the  man's  ego  intact,  unhurt,  full  of  the 
dignity  of  his  own  personality.  "Let  us 
be  one,"  Love  will  demand.  But  it  will 
not  define  which  one.  For,  indeed,  a  per 
fect  union  is  never  either  one — it  is  both. 
Suppose  Mrs.  Smith  could  say,  thought 
fully  (not  pathetically  or  resignedly — for 
pathos  and  resignation  are  enough  to 
88 


"LOVE  MY   DOG" 

send  Mr.  Smith  to  the  ends  of  the  earth 
to  escape  her!):  "Well,  dear,  I  rather 
think  you  are  mistaken;  but,  of  course, 
do  as  you  think  best";  and  let  him  stay 
at  home  and  read  his  paper  on  Sunday; 
or  even  serve  him  with  hot  mince -pie 
every  night  at  twelve,  if  his  foolish  ego 
shall  so  desire!  In  the  latter  instance, 
when  the  inevitable  result  follows,  if  she 
can  refrain — (of  course,  to  do  this  she 
must  be  a  friend  as  well  as  a  poor  earthly 
wife) — if  she  can  refrain  from  saying,  "I 
told  you  so!"  there  will  be  no  quarrel,  but 
a  unity  that  does  not  fear  diversity. 
For  when  Smith  recovers,  though  he  may 
or  may  not  continue  the  pie  diet,  he  will 
not  hate  Mrs.  Smith,  as  he  would  have 
done  had  she  forced  him  into  reluctant 
health.  This  course  on  her  part  allows 
the  poor  man  to  preserve  his  individual 
ity  ;  it  does  not  force  him  to  be  good  with 
her  goodness,  or  wise  with  her  wisdom. 
It  allows  him  to  love  Mrs.  Smith,  and  not 
7  89 


THE   COMMON    WAY 

her  dog.  Yet  what  unity  such  a  course 
may  develop  between  two  people  who 
love  each  other!  Their  thoughts  may  be 
quite  diverse;  their  ideals,  though  of 
equal  height,  may  be  very  far  apart; 
their  theories  radically  opposed ;  yet  each 
so  respects  the  other's  personality  that 
they  differ  with  a  delightful  good-humor 
which  really  adds  much  to  the  interest 
of  their  lives.  Such  lovers  may  never 
agree  on  certain  points,  but  they  will 
never  quarrel. 

To  bring  about  this  sane  friendship  be 
tween  people  who  love  each  other,  re 
spect  for  individuality  is  of  course  neces 
sary.  But  such  respect  is,  after  all,  an 
abstract  thing,  and  cannot  be  cultivated 
in  a  moment.  While  waiting  for  it  to 
struggle  through  our  stony  egotism,  there 
is  one  thing  we  can  do :  we  can  vow  that 
unless  duty  seriously  and  lovingly  de 
mands  it,  there  shall  be  no  unasked  criti 
cism  between  people  who  love  each  other. 
90 


"LOVE  MY  DOG" 

Think  how  it  would  make  for  peace 
if  domestic  criticism  were  forbidden  at 
every  breakfast-table.  Think  of  our  own 
happiness  if  our  brothers  and  sisters  would 
stop  telling  us  unpleasant  truths! — think 
of  their  happiness  if  we  could  refrain  from 
enlightening  them  as  to  their  dress  or 
manners  or  beliefs. 

Indeed,  if  Love  will  stop  its  suicidal 
habit  of  criticism,  it  will  quarrel  so  seldom 
that  it  will  be  as  hopeful  on  this  subject 
as  the  Optimist  herself,  and  it  will  declare, 
of  Love  and  Quarrelling,  that,  like  Mrs. 
'Arris,  there  ain't  no  such  thing! 


, 


THE  TYRANNY  OF  THINGS 


THE  story  of  Rosamond  and  her 
purple  jar  which  fed  the  minds  of 
youth  in  the  early  part  of  the  last  cen 
tury  had  a  very  immoral  moral  attached 
to  it — namely,  that  the  useful  was  more 
needful  than  the  beautiful.  Rosamond, 
it  will  be  remembered,  deeply  desired  a 
certain  purple  jar;  she  also  needed  a  new 
pair  of  shoes.  Her  mother,  who  was  an 
insufferably  wise  and  prudent  person, 
laid  before  her  little  seven-year-old  girl 
the  whole  situation:  something  fine  to 
look  at  versus  something  comfortable  to 
wear;  something  to  gratify  the  eye  or 
something  to  meet  the  needs  of  the  body; 
92 


THE   TYRANNY  OF  THINGS 

the  useful  or  the  beautiful.  "Oh,  moth 
er,  oh ! "  Rosamond  had  cried  out !  ' '  Look ! 
look!  Blue,  green,  red,  yellow,  and  pur 
ple!  Oh,  mother,  what  beautiful  things! 
Won't  you  buy  some  of  these?"  And 
the  mother  replied  with  cold  reasonable 
ness,  "Of  what  use  would  they  be  to  me, 
Rosamond?" 

Poor  little  Rosamond,  hunting  for  a 
use,  suggests  that  flowers  might  be  put 
into  these  beautiful  red  and  yellow  things ; 
and  then  the  passion  of  art  speaks  with 
pathetic  simplicity:  "They  would  look  so 
pretty  on  the  chimney-piece."  It  is  then 
that  the  mother  calmly  presents  the  sit 
uation.  .  .  .  Rosamond,  with  a  spiritual  in 
stinct  which  was  soon  to  be  extinguished, 
quickly  chose  the  purple  jar,  joyously  in 
different  to  tattered  shoes.  The  remarks 
of  her  mother,  the  great  discomfort  of 
pebbles  in  her  little  shoes,  combined  with 
the  mean  advantage  taken  by  the  author 
in  making  the  jar  a  fraud  in  the  fleeting 
93 


THE  COMMON  WAY 

nature  of  the  gorgeous  purple  dye,  soon 
brought  poor  Rosamond  down  to  the 
materialistic  level  of  this  most  utilitarian 
of  Miss  Edgeworth's  households.  Of 
course,  the  moral  shines  forth  distinctly: 
The  necessities  of  life  are  not  spiritual, 
but  material. 

That  this  is  immoral,  everybody  will 
agree.  The  statement  that  the  body 
shall  be  nourished  at  the  expense  of  the 
soul,  at  the  cost  of  emotional  experi 
ences,  at  the  price  of  that  love  of  beauty 
and  sense  of  fitness  which  express  them 
selves  in  art,  this  statement  is,  of  course, 
wicked.  Such  nourishment  starves  the 
spirit,  though  the  body  may  wax  fat 
upon  it,  and  the  individual  prosper  in 
every  material  way.  Nor  is  he  necessa 
rily  any  the  worse  ethically,  for  character, 
squeezed  by  pure  reason  into  hard-and- 
fast  rules  of  conduct,  becomes  a  reliable 
and  useful  commodity  in  social  life;  a 
staple  that  never  fluctuates  in  gusts  of 
94 


THE  TYRANNY  OF  THINGS 

emotion,  but  can  always  be  depended 
upon.  Yet  where  there  has  been  any 
love  of  beauty  the  artistic  sense  suffers 
its  own  agonies  of  starvation  —  until  its 
death  ends  its  pain.  By -and  -by  Rosa 
mond  got  over  crying  out  with  joy  at 
the  sight  of  color,  just  because  it  was 
beautiful;  she  was  able  to  choose  a 
needle-book,  instead  of  a  painted  stone 
plum,  and  even  to  congratulate  herself 
upon  her  own  good  sense: 

''I  am  glad  I  chose  the  red  leather 
needle-book  that  has  been  so  useful  to 
me,  instead  of  the  stone  plum  that  would 
have  been  no  use  to  me." 

The  enormity  of  a  stone  painted  to  look 
like  a  plum  did  not,  of  course,  weigh  with 
Miss  Edgeworth;  she  merely  presented 
use  versus  what  she  called  beauty;  and 
Rosamond  learned  the  lesson.  But  the 
little  girl  did  not  reach  such  utilitarian 
heights  without  pain.  Those  of  us  who 
know  her  woes  by  heart  read  into  the 
95 


THE  COMMON  WAY 

small,  ugly  countenance  of  the  wood-cuts 
a  certain  pathos ;  the  pathos  of  the  round 
peg  in  the  square  hole.  Miss  Edge  worth's 
moral  pen  quickly  whittled  the  poor  peg 
into  shape;  and  when  at  the  end  of  the 
book  we  left  her,  Rosamond's  desire  for 
beauty  was  thoroughly  eradicated,  her 
aesthetic  sense  quite  atrophied,  her  ap 
preciation  of  utility  grown  to  monstrous 
proportions.  As  a  result,  her  little,  im 
pulsive  soul, full  of  the  divine  irrationality 
of  feeling  which  had  needed  only  the  bal 
ance  of  life's  necessities,  had  become 
priggish  and  sterile,  all  its  imaginative 
promptings  stultified  by  pure  reason  and 
an  entirely  intellectual,  unemotional  sense 
of  duty. 

Of  course,  this  was  all  very  bad;  we 
know  it  so  well  that  no  one  takes  the 
trouble  to  say  so.  Yet  somehow  or 
other  the  pendulum  does  seem  to  have 
swung  very  far  the  other  way!  That 
hard  ugliness  had  in  it  a  certain  fibre 


THE  TYRANNY  OF  THINGS 

that  we,  in  our  lovelier  living,  come  peril 
ously  near  missing.  It  almost  seems  as 
if  nowadays  the  feeling  for  beauty  had 
brought  about  a  sensuality  of  the  mind 
that  has  softened  and  crumbled  the  fun 
damental  granite  of  human  experience 
(which  is  only  another  word  for  utilitari 
anism)  ,  until  we  have  merely  a  mush  of 
emotions  which  we  call  the  artistic  sense. 
The  demand  of  the  American  people  is, 
just  now,  for  decoration ;  but,  as  Beauty 
has  no  ultimate  and  absolute  standard, 
decoration  is,  of  course,  a  matter  of  per 
sonal  judgment.  And  what  personal 
judgment  can  do,  we  all  know  too  well! 
Purple  jars  (of  insincerest  dyes!)  abound; 
we  are  swamped  with  them.  With  imita 
tion  plums,  with  rolling-pins  covered  with 
plush  and  studded  with  brass  hooks, 
with  painted  snow  -  shovels.  We  have 
"picture  throws,"  too — monstrosities  so 
far  removed  from  the  ordinary  walks  of 
life  that  they  should  perhaps  be  de- 
97 


THE   COMMON   WAY 

scribed  in  detail:  eggs,  blown,  then  gild 
ed,  and,  separated  by  a  blue  or  red  glass 
bead,  strung  upon  a  cord  of  chenille; 
when  twenty  or  twenty-five  eggs  have 
been  "treated"  in  this  way,  the  whole 
appalling  collection  is  "thrown"  over 
the  upper  corner  of  a  picture,  and  hangs 
there  to  collect  dust  and  debauch  the 
aesthetic  sense  of  the  family. 

Of  course,  these  are  extreme  and  hor 
rible  illustrations  of  the  untrained  artis 
tic  sense.  Yet  even  in  refined  households 
it  would  seem  that  the  rebound  from 
the  utilitarianism  of  Rosamond's  unpleas 
ant  mother,  to  the  demand  for  some 
thing  to  please  the  eye,  has  gone  too  far, 
and  that  we  need  some  slight  return  to 
austerer  standards. 

Quite  apart  from  the  principle  involved 
in  Miss  Edgeworth's  complacent  worship 
of  the  useful,  the  emptiness  of  the  house 
in  which  Rosamond  lived  is  as  delightful 
as  a  fresh  wind  and  silence — at  least  when. 


THE  TYRANNY  OF  THINGS 

we  approach  it  from  the  clutter  and  over- 
adornment  of  our  own  dwellings;  from 
our  "purple  jars,"  our  tottering  tables 
of  useless  and  too  often  meaningless  sil 
ver,  our  crowded,  billowing  cushions,  our 
floating  hangings,  our  preposterous  ome 
lette  of  Japanese  rooms,  Dutch  corners, 
and  Mooresque  nooks! 

Rosamond's  house,  as  it  is  pictured  in 
that  little  fat  volume  of  our  youth,  is 
plain  to  the  point  of  bareness.  In  the 
drawing-room  we  behold  a  mantel -shelf ,  a 
single  picture  (hanging  very  near  the  ceil 
ing),  a  table,  a  chair,  a  footstool;  and  a 
female,  Rosamond's  mother,  as  wooden  as 
the  rest  of  the  furnishings!  This  room 
is  bare,  but  it  is  not  hideous.  In  its  way, 
it  has  the  refinement  of  a  Japanese  dwell 
ing,  clean,  restful,  simple.  Contrasted 
with  certain  drawing-rooms  which  one  en 
counters  in  one's  way  about  the  world,  it 
seems  a  haven  of  rest.  It  is  useful,  mere 
ly;  but  how  refreshing  would  mere  use- 
99 


THE    COMMON   WAY 

fulness  be  in  rooms  filled  to  overflowing 
with  bric-a-brac,  which  too  often  tries 
to  combine  use  with  beauty,  to  the  abso 
lute  extinction  of  both.  When  people 
of  some  degree  of  intelligence  choose  to 
use  as  a  match  -  case  a  gilded  wooden 
shoe,  adorned  with  pink  satin  bows,  it 
is  time  to  turn  to  Rosamond's  mother: 
"Why  tie  ribbons,"  she  would  say,  "to 
a  receptacle  for  lamp-lighters  ?  Why  gild 
an  article  made  to  be  worn  in  the  mud  ? 
Why  place  a  shoe,  whose  place  is  in  the 
closet  or  on  the  foot,  on  the  mantel 
shelf?  What,"  this  reasonable  female 
would  demand,  "is  the  use  of  such  a 
thing?" 

What,  indeed!  The  matches  catch  in 
the  ribbons,  the  gilt  flecks  off  at  a  touch, 
and  the  labor  of  the  household  is  made 
just  so  much  more  complicated  by  the 
necessary  dusting  of  this  senseless  thing. 

The  fact  is,  the  gilded  shoe  is  but  a  sym 
bol  of  that  tyranny  of  Things  which  the 
100 


THE  TYRANNY  OF  THINGS 

over-elaboration  of  living,  so  characteris 
tic  of  our  day  and  generation,  has  brought 
about.  We  have  all  of  us  felt  it  in  one 
way  or  another;  perhaps  most  obviously 
in  aesthetics.  But  thoughtful  persons  rec 
ognize  their  own  (or  their  neighbor's) 
slavery  to  Things,  in  social  life,  in  edu 
cation,  and  even  in  emotion. 

In  social  life,  the  gilded  shoes  are  mean 
ingless  details  —  details  which,  for  want 
of  a  better  term,  are  called  "  duties." 
Now  there  are  certain  conventions  of  liv 
ing,  certain  sweet  refinements  and  noble 
courtesies,  which  create  elegance  and 
distinction,  and  do  unquestionably  make 
for  the  truest  civilization.  No  one  can 
question  the  value  of  such  conventions, 
because  at  bottom  they  are  grounded  on 
spiritual  necessities,  on  deep  human  ap 
preciations.  They  are  not  Things,  be 
cause  they  have  souls;  but  when  such 
decent  and  dignified  conventions  are 
overloaded  with  pink  ribbons  and  cheap 
101 


THE   COMMON   WAY 

gilding — to  return  to  the  metaphor  of 
the  shoe — the  spirit  goes  out  of  them. 
When  the  human  instinct  of  courteous 
fellowship  degenerates  into  the  enforced 
and  hated  round  of  calls,  full  of  tired 
chatter  or  else  sighs  of  relief  in  finding 
people  "not  at  home,"  the  pink  rib 
bons  are  beginning!  When  hospitali 
ty,  which  may  entertain  angels  unawares, 
drops  into  a  mathematical  give  and  take, 
the  chains  of  slavery  can  be  heard  rat 
tling  under  the  table. 

In  intellectual  life  it  is  just  the  same. 
The  sound  thoroughness  of  real  scholar 
ship  is  embroidered  over  and  over  with 
futile  accomplishments ;  a  little  of  a  great 
many  things  is  too  often  the  educational 
standard;  decoration  where  it  does  not 
belong,  elaboration  of  the  useless,  so  that 
the  sternness  of  true  study  is  hidden  and 
stifled  and  by-and-by  extinguished. 

The  great  emotional  experiences  of 
life  are  belittled  by  the  same  insistence 
102 


THE   TYRANNY  OF  THINGS 

upon  the  trivial :  Life  and  Love  look  into 
each  other's  eyes;  a  man  and  woman 
elect  each  other  from  all  the  world.  But 
the  joyful  solemnity  of  marriage  is  ruf 
fled  by  the  details  of  the  wedding,  per 
haps  by  family  squabbles  over  flowers 
and  gowns  and  invitations!  Or  Great 
Death  comes  in  at  the  door,  and  the  lit 
tle  human  soul,  overwhelmed  with  grief, 
appalled  by  the  sudden  opening  of  Eter 
nity  before  its  eyes — yet  fusses  (there  is 
no  other  word  for  it)  over  "mourning," 
over  the  width  of  the  hem  on  the  veil  or 
the  question  of  crepe  buttons  or  dull  jet! 
This  may  be  shocking  or  mournful  or 
ludicrous,  as  one  happens  to  look  at  it; 
but  it  is  certainly  uncivilized. 

Perhaps  even  our  religious  life  is  not 
free  from  this  tyranny;  crowds  of  super 
ficial  emotions  riot  hysterically  in  some 
forms  of  worship,  so  that  the  bed-rock  of 
conduct  on  which  emotion  ought  to  rest 
crumbles  little  by  little  away;  plain 
103 


THE  COMMON  WAY 

duties  go  by  the  board,  and  gilding  and 
pink  ribbons  take  their  place. 

There  are  a  few  people  who  long  for 
freedom  from  the  unnecessary  in  society 
and  education  and  religion ;  but  there  are 
many  more  who  are  awakening  to  our 
more  obvious  slavery  in  aesthetics.  One 
says  "our" — because  the  slavery  does 
not  belong  only  in  the  class  which  is  dig 
ging  its  way  out  of  barbarism  with  a 
painted  snow-shovel.  The  slavery  begins, 
to  be  sure,  at  this  lowest  point  of  artistic 
development,  but  it  runs  up  to  the  level 
of  the  most  cultivated  appreciation  of 
what  is  beautiful.  At  this  level  it  shows 
itself  in  accumulation;  and  how  well  we 
know  the  results!  More  Things:  more 
servants,  more  expense,  more  anxieties; 
less  time,  less  silence,  less  space! 

In  the  Shovel  and  Picture  Throw  Class, 
Things  do  not  involve  extra  service,  be 
cause  this  class  has,  generally,  a  limited 
income,  hence  the  work  caused  by — let 
104 


THE  TYRANNY  OF  THINGS 

us  say — the  shovel,  does  not  imply  ad 
ditional  household  labor  which  must  be 
paid  for;  the  owner  does  her  own  dust 
ing.  But  time  is  stolen  and  space  is 
used  and  thought  is  squandered.  There 
is,  furthermore,  the  initial  expenditure 
for  the  shovel  itself. 

This  comes  home  to  us  all  with  dis 
couraging  force  when  we  see  the  crowd 
of  women  at  Christmas -time  who  make 
the  day  of  Christ's  birth  a  date  for  the 
exchange  and  accumulation  of  trash. 
The  women  who  battle  their  way  through 
the  department  stores,  while  hard-earned 
and  hard-saved  money  trickles  out  of 
thin,  tightly  grasped  purses,  for — name 
less  things !  Celluloid  and  plush  and  gilt ; 
cheap,  flimsy,  without  dignity  and  with 
out  significance;  neither  useful  to  the 
body  nor  nourishing  to  the  soul.  Put 
such  things  beside  a  single  rose,  exquisite 
for  its  little  moment,  gone  when  its  work 
of  cheer  and  fragrance  is  done! — and  the 
s  105 


THE    COMMON    WAY 

poor  slave  to  Things  groans  under  the 
consciousness  of  money  spent  for  that 
which  is  not  bread,  and  labor  given  for 
that  which  satisfieth  not. 

The  vice  of  Accumulation,  however, 
does  not  reach  its  fullest  expression 
among  the  uncultivated  poor — the  Shovel 
Class;  and  for  reasons  that  are  obvious. 
It  shows  its  rank  and  poisonous  growth 
in  households  where  a  refined  taste  re 
pudiates  the  celluloid  whisk-broom  case 
and  the  plush  picture  -  frame.  To  be 
personal:  Can  we  not  all  of  us  recall 
articles  packed  away  on  the  upper  shelves 
of  our  spare-room  closets  ? — vases,  casts, 
plaques,  lamps;  packed  away,  not  be 
cause  they  are  ugly,  but  because  we 
have  so  many  new  things  that  we  must 
dispose  of  old  things  to  make  room  for 
them.  What  would  Rosamond's  mother 
say  to  two  purple  jars  ?  Yet  some  of  us 
exhausted  housekeepers  could  easily  (and 
gladly)  bestow  twenty  upon  her! 
1 06 


THE  TYRANNY  OF  THINGS 

Of  course,  accumulation,  per  se,  is  silly 
—but  it  is  more  than  that ;  it  is  a  burden 
and  an  anxiety.  In  the  class  that  has 
outgrown  the  Shovel  it  complicates  do 
mestic  affairs,  it  raises  the  question  of 
household  labor  with  its  harrowing  diffi 
culties  between  employer  and  employed. 
"Oh,  for  the  days  when  I  had  one  girl, 
and  dusted  my  own  parlor!"  cried  a  wom 
an  whose  great  establishment  took  her 
time  and  nerves  and  morals.  Desire 
for  the  one-girl  period  was  probably  an 
exaggeration,  but  her  principle  was  sound 
and  civilized.  Indeed,  a  limited  civili 
zation  betrays  itself  in  this  overfeeding 
of  the  artistic  instinct,  just  as  limited 
breeding  betrays  itself  in  overfeeding  of 
the  body.  And  when  we  once  fully  real 
ize  this,  we  shall  no  doubt  rise  up  and 
fight  for  freedom.  But  we  shall  not  se 
cure  it  without  pain.  The  slave  must 
break  his  chains,  and  he  cannot  do  so 
without  effort. 

107 


THE   COMMON   WAY 

Yet  it  has  been  done. 

The  first  impulse  of  those  who  would 
become  civilized  is  to  rid  themselves  of 
Things ;  and  they  hasten  the  hour  of  free 
dom  by  presenting  their  unholy  posses 
sions  to  less  enlightened  households: — a 
cheap  vase  to  a  sewing- woman ;  a  gilded 
broiler,  tied  with  blue  ribbons  and  used 
as  paper-rack,  to  some  innocent  depend 
ant.  But  this  is  profoundly  selfish  and 
irresponsible.  It  does,  indeed,  purge  the 
original  owner  of  the  horror,  but  it  only 
passes  it  along  to  afflict  humanity.  There 
is  but  one  sure  road  to  freedom — destruc 
tion  of  Things. 

A  fire  in  the  back-yard,  fed  with  wood 
en  shoes,  can  be  relied  upon.  Purple 
jars,  not  being  combustible,  might  be 
drowned  in  the  depths  of  the  sea;  brass 
dragons  with  curly  tails,  called  candle 
sticks,  awkward  to  hold,  with  no  human 
touch  of  imagination  or  handicraft  about 
them,  neither  useful  nor  beautiful,  might 
108 


THE  TYRANNY  OF  THINGS 

be  disposed  of  to  the  junk-man;  plush 
things  without  a  name  demand  the  ash- 
barrel,  for  they  do  not  burn  well;  the 
vital  purity  of  fire  repudiates  them! 
Tidies  are  prehistoric;  but  if  any  sur 
vive,  the  ash -barrel  is  also  their  true 
home. 

On  the  whole,  fire  is  our  most  efficient 
helper.  A  "holy  fire,"  some  one  called  it 
once — a  fire  of  sacrifice  and  aspiration  and 
worship!  Rosamond's  austere  and  un 
lovely  mother  would  no  doubt  ultimately 
banish  the  unnecessary,  the  futile,  and 
the  useless  by  forbidding  their  purchase; 
but  immediately  afterwards  it  would  be 
necessary  to  banish  Rosamond's  mother. 
Fire,  however,  vanishes  with  its  purify 
ing  work  and  leaves  Beauty,  bare  and 
clear  and  entirely  true,  to  take  its  majes 
tic  place  in  human  life.  .  .  .  With  what  a 
sense  of  freedom  we  would  all  breathe  if 
we  were  saved  as  by  fire! 

Think  of  our  cluttered  houses,  swept 
109 


THE    COMMON    WAY 

clean  of  a  thousand  Things — things  beau 
tiful,  perhaps,  in  themselves  (we  are  not 
considering  the  snow  -shovel),  but  so  nu 
merous  that  they  cannot  present  a  single 
clear  impression;  think  of  our  floors,  bare 
of  multitudinous  rugs;  of  our  sideboards, 
freed  from  innumerable  pieces  of  unused 
silver,  upon  which  our  servants  spend 
their  grudging  labor;  of  our  walls,  stripped 
of  dozens  of  pictures  to  leave  space  for 
the  two  or  three  with  which  we  want  to 
live.  Think  of  days  empty  of  trivialities 
— days  free  from  long-drawn  committee 
meetings  where  nothing  is  accomplished, 
from  tiresome  lectures,  from  weary  call 
ing,  from  the  frippery  of  ceremony — 
days  spacious  and  silent,  open  to  nature 
and  art  and  humanness!  Think  of  the 
great,  simple,  divine  human  experiences, 
of  Love  and  Death,  unspotted  by  triviali 
ties;  think  even  of  worship  stripped  of 
little,  foolish,  unmanly,  and  unwomanly 
trimmings  and  details,  and  left  to  its  own 
no 


THE  TYRANNY  OF  THINGS 

unspeakable  dignity,  stirrred  through  and 
through  by  the  great  pulse  of  Conduct ! 

This  ideal  of  freedom  from  the  tyranny 
of  Things  may  be  very  far  from  realiza 
tion,  but  there  is  reason  to  hope  that  down 
underneath  the  dreary  weight  of  our 
foolish  possessions  it  is  slowly  evolving. 

And  every  one  of  us  poor  slaves  who 
lights  a  match  to  burn  household  trash 
lights  a  torch  to  illumine  the  path  on 
which  Truth  and  Beauty  and  Freedom 
shall  come  into  their  kingdom! 


CONCERNING  CHURCH-GOING 

IT  is  not  so  very  long  ago  that  church- 
going  and  character  were  synony 
mous;  not  that  everybody  who  went  to 
church  was  good,  but  everybody  who 
was  good  went  to  church.  Only  the  scoff 
er  and  the  very  black  sheep  stayed  away. 
To  say  of  a  man  that  he  was  not  a  church 
goer  was  equivalent  to  saying  that  he 
was  to  be  looked  upon  with  suspicion, 
or,  at  any  rate,  with  grave  disapproval. 
Christian  people,  in  those  days,  had  clear 
and  simple  judgment  in  such  matters. 
Salvation,  they  said,  depended  upon  the 
knowledge  of  God,  and  knowledge  of 
God  depended  upon  the  Church.  The 

112 


CONCERNING  CHURCH-GOING 

logical  deduction  from  the  premise  was 
that  everybody  ought  to  go  to  church. 

One  looks  back  upon  the  simple  and 
uncomplicated  frame  of  mind  which  could 
make  such  a  statement  almost  with  envy. 
It  belonged  to  a  period  of  definite  ethical 
outlines  and  plain,  elemental  laws;  to  a 
time  when  people  said  "this  is  right"; 
"that is  wrong  " ;  when,  for  instance,  with 
clean  -  cut  certainty  they  declared  that 
cards  were  the  devil's  prayer  book;  and 
added  that  if  one  used  the  devil's  litany 
one  was  in  a  fair  way  to  go  to  the  devil, 
for  ever  and  ever.  But  how  differently 
we  put  such  things  to  ourselves,  we  com 
plex  sinners  of  1904 !  We  hesitate  to  pro 
nounce  anything  entirely  good  or  entire 
ly  bad.  We,  for  example,  know  the  rela 
tion  of  recreation  to  character,  and  be 
lieve  in  the  card -table  accordingly;  yet 
we  have  an  uneasy  consciousness  of  the 
devil  in  relation  to  Bridge.  Our  fathers, 
or  certainly  our  grandfathers,  had  no 


THE  COMMON  WAY 

such  uneasiness  in  any  question  of  ethics. 
They  saw  things  simply — right  or  wrong, 
black  or  white.  We,  unsimple  folk,  are 
bewildered  by  a  multitude  of  shades  of 
gray. 

And  there  are  so  many  of  these  gray 
questions!  Dingy  white  some  of  them 
are,  or  plaid,  or  check;  there  are  appar 
ently  very  few  unmistakably  black  ones, 
on  which  we  can  come  out  with  a  whole- 
souled  reference  to  the  devil  and  all  his 
works !  And  this  question  of  the  duty  of 
going  to  church  is  one  of  the  gray  ones. 

There  are,  of  course,  a  multitude  of  fool 
ish  and  conceited  things  said  by  people 
who  do  not  go  to  church.  "The  Church 
has  done  its  work,"  these  people  say,  care 
lessly;  "its  day  is  over;  it  is  obsolete;  it 
is  a  remnant  of  the  dark  ages  and  the 
childhood  of  the  race."  Such  statements 
are  so  obviously  absurd  that  they  do  not 
give  us  much  concern ;  but  they  do  make 
clear  to  us  that  the  time  has  passed  when 
114 


CONCERNING  CHURCH-GOING 

church-going  was  the  highest  expression 
of  the  moral  life  of  the  community,  and 
hence  a  matter  of  course  with  respect 
able  people. 

Going  to  church  has  ceased  to  be  a  mat 
ter  of  course. 

It  has  become  a  matter  of  effort,  on 
the  part  of  the  pastor,  to  "get  people  to 
come,"  as  the  phrase  is;  a  matter  of  re 
luctant  duty  on  the  part  of  some  of  the 
people  who  do  come;  and  no  matter 
at  all  to  the  people  who  stay  away ! 

Yet,  in  spite  of  the  effort  in  the  pulpit, 
in  spite  of  the  sense  of  duty  in  the  pews, 
a  comparison  of  church  attendance  to 
day  with  that  of  thirty  or  forty  years 
ago  presents  an  astonishing  difference. 
The  scattered  congregation  seems  to  be 
made  up  of  two  classes:  old,  anxious, 
conservative  souls,  who  scold  the  empty 
pews;  young,  rebellious,  careless  souls, 
who  come  because  parental  authority  re 
quires  it,  but  who  promise  themselves 


THE  COMMON  WAY 

freedom  at  the  earliest  possible  moment. 
And  between  these  two  classes,  which 
sprinkle  themselves  over  the  half-empty 
church,  there  is  a  great  gulf  fixed — a 
gulf  of  misunderstanding  and  lack  of 
sympathy.  The  older  people  are  bitter 
and  hark  back  to  some  elemental  law  of 
their  youth  as  to  the  "duty"  of  going  to 
church.  The  younger  people  are  con 
temptuous  and  declare  that  they  are  a 
law  unto  themselves.  .  .  .  But  where  are 
the  people  who  are  missed?  (We  are 
not  just  now  asking  about  the  people  who 
do  not  go  to  church  anyhow  or  anywhere 
— the  reckless,  selfish,  dissolute  people; 
such  persons  from  the  beginning  have 
been  non- church -goers,  and  so  do  not 
come  into  the  present  puzzle.)  But  where 
are  the  people  who,  a  generation  ago, 
would  have  been  as  regular  in  their  at 
tendance  at  church  as  their  pastor  him 
self  ?  The  people  who  are  neither  young 
nor  old,  bitter  nor  contemptuous,  con- 
116 


CONCERNING  CHURCH-GOING 

servative  nor  impatient?  Where  are 
they,  these  people  of  intelligence  and 
conscientiousness,  of  upright  life,  of  re 
sponsibility,  or  even  of  mere  harmless, 
pleasant  living  ? 

They  can  be  found  easily  enough. 
They  are  reading  their  papers  on  Sunday 
morning,  or  writing  letters,  or  playing 
golf,  or  perhaps  lying  in  their  beds  half 
asleep  over  a  novel;  they  are  studying, 
they  are  deep  in  some  professional  work, 
they  are  doing  anything  and  everything 
—  except  going  to  church.  In  the 
churches  on  Sunday  morning  the  preach 
ers  upbraid  them  ;  the  old  -  fashioned 
folk  reprobate  them  for  their  bad  ex 
ample  ;  and  the  young  people  envy 
them. 

What  does  it  all  mean,  this  golf -play 
ing,  novel  -  reading,  letter  -  writing  state 
of  things  ?  How  may  it  be  met  ?  Where 
is  the  law  that  can  be  applied  to  it,  which 
will  define  our  duty — a  primitive,  simple 
117 


THE   COMMON  WAY 

law,  obedience  to  which  will  set  every 
thing  right? 

In  regard  to  the  young  people,  some 
of  us  think  that  the  law  is  obvious 
enough.  Church-going,  we  say,  may  have 
become  a  matter  of  personal  opinion  and 
choice  among  adults.  But  no  opinion 
can  be  of  much  value  which  is  not  based 
upon  experience;  hence,  before  the  chil 
dren  begin  to  make  experiences  for  them 
selves,  before  they  can  possibly  be  able 
to  have  an  opinion  and  make  a  choice 
about  church-going,  they  ought  to  be 
educated  in  ways  which  human  expe 
rience  in  all  the  generations  has  proved  to 
be  helpful  to  the  spiritual  life. 

So,  those  of  us  who  find  the  bread  of 
life  in  the  church  must  certainly  take  the 
children  there.  This  is  the  elemental  and 
simple  law  in  regard  to  youth,  just  as  ele 
mental  and  simple  as  that  which  justifies 
the  father  and  mother  in  providing  food 
for  the  baby's  body  which  their  own  expe- 
118 


CONCERNING  CHURCH-GOING 

rience  declares  is  sound  and  nourishing. 
The  baby's  preferences  are  not  asked! 

But  in  regard  to  grown  people,  a  law  as 
to  any  especial  food  for  body  or  soul  is 
hard  to  discover. 

If  we  found,  for  instance,  that  deca 
dence  in  church-going  meant  decadence 
in  character,  we  might  feel  that,  at  least, 
we  were  on  the  way  to  such  a  law.  But 
it  does  not  mean  a  decadence  in  character. 
Some  of  these  people  who  do  not  go  to 
church  are  not  bad  people.  On  the  con 
trary,  we  admit  (if  we  are  candid)  that 
among  those  that  stay  away  to  play  golf 
or  write  letters,  or  even  to  read  novels, 
are  some  of  the  noblest  and  best  men  and 
women  that  we  know.  We  have  to  ac 
knowledge  that  the  man  who  has  made 
the  most  superb  fight  for  civic  righteous 
ness  is  a  non-church-goer.  We  have  to 
grant  that  the  woman  whose  purse  and 
heart  are  at  the  service  of  poor,  bad, 
broken  humanity  spends  her  Sunday 
119 


THE  COMMON  WAY 

morning  in  her  garden.  Yes,  they  are 
good;  it  is  their  goodness  that  makes 
them  so  perplexing.  In  fact,  our  young 
people,  longing  for  "tennis  on  Sunday 
mornings,  do  not  hesitate  to  point  out 
to  us,  with  the  candor  peculiar  to  their 
engaging  generation,  that  some  of  these 
non-church-goers  are  of  very  much  more 
value  to  the  community  than  are  certain 
folk  whom  (possibly)  respect  forbids  them 
to  name.  We  have  to  admit  that  some 
of  these  non-church-goers  practise  Chris 
tian  virtues  in  a  way  that  puts  the  Chris 
tian  church-goer  to  shame;  they  force 
upon  us  the  conclusion  that  attendance 
at  church  is  not  a  necessity,  but  an  ad 
junct  to  character.  When  this  comes 
home  to  us  we  find  no  elemental  and 
primitive  repartee  about  the  devil  to  fall 
back  upon.  We  have  to  face  the  com 
plexity  of  the  situation  by  asking  our 
selves  certain  questions : 

First — Why  do  we  go  to  church  ? 
120 


CONCERNING  CHURCH-GOING 

Secondly — What  do  we  mean  by 
"church"? 

As  for  why  we  go,  there  may  be  many 
different  reasons ;  but  there  are  two  which 
are  common  to  us  all:  we  go  for  instruc 
tion,  and  we  go  for  worship. 

In  the  matter  of  receiving  instruction, 
there  is  a  marked  difference  between  the 
older  and  the  younger  generation.  In 
these  days  doctrinal  instruction  is  not 
desired  by  the  large  mass  of  people  who 
might  be  church-goers.  Indeed,  indiffer 
ence  to  such  teaching  is  part  of  that 
strange  change  of  standards  which  just 
now  is  so  perplexing,  and,  indeed,  so  so 
bering,  Yet,  if  we  will  look  deeply  enough 
into  this  antipathy  to  instruction  in  mat 
ters  of  personal  belief,  we  will  find  that 
it  is  not  all  discouraging,  because  it  has 
its  root  in  the  ideal  of  personal  liberty. 
See  what  this  ideal  means  in  the  matter  of 
instruction  in  relation  to  church-going: 

We  are  willing  to  have  our  ministers 

9  121 


THE    COMMON    WAY 

say  to  us,  "Do  your  duty,"  but  we  are 
not  willing  to  have  them  tell  us  what  our 
duty  is;  that  we  will  decide  for  ourselves! 
In  other  words,  the  ideal  of  personal  lib 
erty  demands  that  each  individual  receive 
his  God  for  himself ;  each  individual  evolve 
his  own  ideal  of  righteousness.  Never 
any  more  may  authority  stand  for  truth ! 
Never  any  more  can  the  human  creature 
take  his  spiritual  law  second  or  third 
hand.  The  Soul  and  God  are  standing 
face  to  face. 

That  is  what  it  all  means,  this  clash 
and  clamor,  this  outbreak  of  individual 
ism,  with  its  foolishness  and  obstinacy 
and  conceit;  these,  we  dare  to  believe, 
are  the  unlovely  and  terrifying  accom 
paniments  of  a  divine  process  of  evolu 
tion,  which  has  for  its  end  a  personal 
relation  with  God.  The  human  Soul  is 
breaking  out  of  the  mould  of  custom — that 
mould  so  necessary  in  all  beginnings ; — to 
face  its  Maker.  "Son  of  Man,"  cries  the 
122 


CONCERNING  CHURCH-GOING 

awful  Voice,  ''stand  upon  thy  feet!" 
And  the  little,  naked  soul,  stripped  of  the 
swaddling-bands  of  custom  and  author 
ity,  stands  up,  whimpering  and  stum 
bling  and  blundering  ( oh,  such  blun 
dering!)  in  the  overwhelming  light;  yet 
claiming,  somehow,  a  new  and  solemn 
and  entirely  personal  relationship  with 
God. 

But  part  of  this  process  of  evolution 
seems  to  be  the  rejection  of  instruction 
from  the  Church,  as  an  institution.  The 
moment  we  realize  the  spirit  of  the  age 
in  this  demand  for  an  entirely  individual 
revelation  of  spiritual  law  to  the  soul,  a 
demand  that  is  not  made  with  flippancy 
or  conceit,  but  with  sober  sincerity,  we 
find  one  reason  for  a  definite  statement 
that  "everybody  ought  to  go  to  church" 
withdrawn.  We  can  no  longer  say  it 
is  a  duty  to  go  "because  we  shall  be 
taught  what  to  believe ' ' ;  because  we 
know  that  we  shall  believe  not  what  we 
123 


THE  COMMON  WAY 

ought,  but  what  we  must;   or  else  lose 
our  intellectual  integrity. 

There  remains,  then,  the  other  reason 
for  going  to  church — worship.  And  that 
brings  one  at  once  to  the  other  question — 
"What  is  meant  by  church?" 

Do  we  mean  the  four  walls  wherein  hu 
man  creatures  gather  to  worship  the  Eter 
nal  —  those  four  sacred  and  venerable 
walls  which  for  generations  have  been 
to  other  human  creatures  the  House  of 
God,  the  very  Gate  of  Heaven?  Cer 
tainly  we  cannot  feel  that  worship  is  de 
pendent  upon  these  four  walls.  No  rev 
erent  or  sensitive  mind  can  contemplate 
the  august  temples,  even  of  the  pagan 
past,  without  spiritual  emotion;  but, 
equally,  no  reverent  mind  can  deny 
the  worship  of  the  Eternal  far  outside 
the  walls  of  any  church.  Does  not 
McAndrew  worship  in  the  engine  - 
room  of  his  steamer?  "I  cannot,"  he 
says — 

124 


CONCERNING  CHURCH-GOING 

"I  cannot  get  my  sleep  to-night;  old  bones  are 

hard  to  please; 
I'll  stand  the  middle  watch  up  here — alone 

wi'  God,  an'  these 
My  engines,  after  ninety  days  o'  race  an'  rack 

an'  strain 
Through  all  the  seas  of  all  Thy  world,  slam- 

bangin'  home  again." 

Alone  with  God  and  his  engines!  Here 
is  worship  which  does  not  need  the  four 
walls,  although  when  he  is  ashore,  no 
doubt,  Me  Andrew  combines  the  worship 
and  the  walls. 

Yes,  although  human  experience  has 
proved  to  us  that  the  assembling  of  our 
selves  together,  to  unite  in  some  outward 
and  visible  sign  of  inward  and  spiritual  as 
piration,  is  helpful  to  many  souls,  and  con 
tributes  to  that  growth  in  grace  which  is 
man's  chief  end,  and  which  we  may  be 
lieve  does  indeed  glorify  God,  yet  we 
know  that  the  blessed  company  of  all 
faithful  people  has  never  limited  itself  to 
four  walls.  For  encouragement  and  joy, 
I25 


THE    COMMON    WAY 

and  help  in  living,  we  may  meet  together 
in  what  we  call  a  church,  and  unite  in 
what  we  call  worship;  but  such  meeting 
together  is  only  a  means,  not  an  end .  The 
end  is  the  fullest,  deepest,  richest  rela 
tion  of  the  individual  soul  to  its  God. 
And  as  soon  as  we  realize  this  we  must 
admit  that  though  we  go  to  church  to 
worship,  some  may  worship  without  going 
to  church. 

"The  sun,  the  moon,  the  stars,  the  seas,  the 

hills,  the  plains, 
Are  not  these,  O  Soul,  the  Vision  of  Him 

who  reigns  ? 
Speak  to  Him,  then,  for  He  hears,  and  Spirit 

with  Spirit  can  meet; 
Closer   is    He    than    breathing,    nearer   than 

hands  or  feet." 

Such  speech  is  worship.  But  when 
we  grant  that,  another  reason  for  de 
claring  that  "everybody  ought  to  go  to 
church"  is  withdrawn. 

So  the  matter  of  going  to  church  comes 
126 


CONCERNING  CHURCH-GOING 

down  to  a  personal  choice  as  to  what  is 
best  for  each  soul,  and  the  question 
" Ought  I  to  go  to  church?"  changes  its 
form:  "Shall  I — who  may  hope,  humbly 
and  reverently,  that  I  belong  to  that 
blessed  company  of  all  faithful  people, 
that  company  which  is  made  up  of  every 
man  and  woman  belonging  to  any  church 
or  to  no  church,  every  human  creature 
who  tries  to  do  justly,  to  love  mercy,  and 
walk  humbly  before  the  Lord  his  God — 
shall  I,  belonging  to  this  company,  get 
help  and  courage  and  consecration  for 
daily  life,  shall  I  lift  up  my  heart  unto  the 
Lord  best,  by  going  to  church  every  Sun 
day?  If  so,  I  go!  Or  shall  I,  perhaps, 
get  such  courage  for  living,  best,  by 
looking  in  silence  up  into  the  sky  from 
under  some  leafy  shelter  on  a  Sunday 
morning?  Can  I  lift  up  my  heart  with 
greater  fervor  among  my  fellows  in  a 
church,  or  do  I  worship  more  deeply  in 
the  solitude  of  books,  or  in  the  service 
127 


THE   COMMON   WAY 

of  humanity,  or,  possibly,  in  mere  luxu 
rious,  well-earned  physical  rest? 

Does  all  this  put  church-going  down 
on  the  basis  of  individual  expediency: 
What  is  best  for  my  soul  ? 

But  is  there  any  other  basis  of  con 
duct?  Is  not  expediency,  in  its  noblest 
sense,  that  elemental  law  of  life,  both 
material  and  spiritual,  of  which  we  feel 
the  need  in  all  these  gray  questions  which 
confront  us?  Expediency  was  the  basis 
of  that  primitive  expression  of  the  dif 
ference  between  right  and  wrong — "Be 
good  or  be  damned."  It  is  the  highest 
suggestion  of  spirituality  in,  "This  is 
eternal  life  —  that  ye  shall  know  the 
Father."  One  saying  seems  to  us  ig 
noble,  and  the  other  divine,  yet  both 
grow  out  of  this  despised  word  expedi 
ency —  the  recognition  of  what  is  best. 
When  the  soul  recognizes  its  own  best, 
the  "ought"  can  be  answered  easily 
enough;  it  cannot  lay  down  a  rule  for 
128 


CONCERNING  CHURCH-GOING 

other  people,  but  it  reaches  an  ele 
mental  law  for  itself. 

How  complicated,  beside  this  law,  are 
the  arguments  that  are  urged  upon  peo 
ple  as  to  the  "duty"  of  going  to  church! 
One  is,  that  people  ought  to  go  to  church 
to  set  a  good  example. 

Here  we  come  upon  a  strange  survival 
of  fetishism — the  suggestion  that  church- 
going,  per  se,  is  of  moral  significance; 
such  fetishism  must  lead  to  a  very  sub 
tle  spiritual  hypocrisy,  because  it  ad 
vocates  the  letter,  whether  the  spirit  be 
there  or  no.  And  certainly  it  is  a  ques 
tion  whether  insincerity  is  ever  a  good 
example. 

Again:  People  should  go  to  church  be 
cause  it  encourages  the  minister. 

But  would  the  minister  be  encouraged 
by  the  presence  of  a  congregation  gath 
ered  to  encourage  him?  Such  " encour 
agement"  is  false  spiritual  economics, 
and  the  true  priest  is  the  first  to  tell  us 
129 


THE   COMMON  WAY 

so.  For  there  is  one  thing  we  must  face, 
that  the  only  excuse  for  supply  is  de 
mand. 

And,  again:  We  ought  to  go  to  church 
to  make  church-going  the  habit  of  our 
lives.  For,  it  is  added,  artlessly,  a  course 
of  conduct  which  becomes  a  habit  cannot 
be  easily  broken. 

True;  but  those  of  us  who  have  seen 
emotion  —  divine,  delicate,  the  breath 
ing  of  the  Eternal  within  us — those  who 
have  seen  such  emotion  harden  into  a 
meaningless  formula  will  not  dare  to  ad 
vocate  the  habit  of  the  expression  of 
emotion. 

And  still  another  reason:  We  ought 
to  go  to  church  to  keep  holy  the  Sabbath 
day. 

Here  we  trespass  at  once  upon  person 
ality.  For  each  soul  of  us  must  decide 
what  is  holiness  to  us ;  and  no  man  can 
decide  what  is  holiness  for  any  other  man. 

But  one  need  not  rehearse  the  multi- 
130 


CONCERNING  CHURCH-GOING 

tude  of  reasons  why  people  "ought"  to 
go  to  church;  instead  is  it  not  easier 
and  simpler  and  truer  to  fall  back  upon 
the  old  divine  and  human  law  of  expe 
diency  ?  A  law  that  seems  to  hold  all  the 
little  reasons  in  its  own  great  reasonable 
ness  ;  a  law  which  makes  for  the  preserva 
tion  of  the  Church — for,  by  individual 
obedience  to  it,  the  Church  must  survive 
as  long  as  human  beings  need  it!  ... 
If  we  obey  this  law,  we  will  trust  a  little 
more.  We  shall  trust  the  purpose  of  the 
Eternal ;  we  shall  trust  the  individual  soul ; 
we  shall  so  trust  in  the  divine  principle 
which  has  created  the  Church  that  we 
shall  be  able  to  believe  in  the  continuance 
of  the  principle  without  the  Church; — 
in  other  words,  we  shall  believe  in  the 
permanence  of  the  soul's  relation  to  God! 
In  trusting  the  principle  of  the  Church, 
even  to  the  point  of  contemplating  the 
ending  of  the  Church  as  an  institution, 
we  only  trust  the  sunrise  to  fade  into  high 


THE    COMMON    WAY 

and  splendid  noon.  And  trusting,  we 
wait ;  without  dogmatism,  only  with  hope. 
We  look  at  the  solemn  verdict  of  human 
experience  that  the  Church  is  necessary; 
and  we  look  also  at  the  demand  of  the 
individual  for  personal  experience  and 
judgment ;  and  we  wait — 

"my  faith  is  large  in  Time, 
And  that  which  shapes  it  to  some  perfect  end." 


ACQUAINTANCE  WITH  GRIEF 

QOMETIMES  the  price  seems  very 
O  high.  .  .  .  Probably  most  of  us  who 
have  reached  middle  age  have  had  mo 
ments  when  we  have  said  to  ourselves 
that  the  price  was  very  high.  We  admit 
that  we  have  danced,  and  the  dancing 
was  all  that  our  hearts  could  wish;  and 
yet  when  the  dance  was  over,  and  we 
stood,  flushed  and  panting,  the  blood  still 
leaping  to  the  music,  we  have  drawn 
back  at  the  sight  of  the  Piper  demanding 
his  pay,  and  said,  "Oh,  it  is  very  high, 
the  price!" 

Yes,  it  is  high;  but  the  dancers,  from 
whom  for  a  period  or  for  all  time  Middle 
133 


THE  COMMON  WAY 

Age  may  have  withdrawn  itself,  the  dan 
cers  see  this  same  poor  Middle  Age  fum 
bling  about  for  some  coin  to  offer  to  the 
inexorable  Piper,  and  go  on  dancing, 
making  no  provision  for  the  moment 
when  they,  too,  will  be  asked  to  pay  the 
price  of  the  dance,  for  Youth  does  not 
understand  this  matter  of  payment.  It 
has  been  told  that  there  is  a  price  for 
everything,  and  that  when  one  dances 
one  pays  the  Piper;  and  perhaps  it  be 
lieves  the  statement,  as  it  believes  many 
other  statements  which  stupid  and  ex 
perienced  Age  is  forever  dinning  into  its 
ears.  But  it  is  hard  for  Youth  to  realize 
what  payment  means;  to  realize  the  ac 
count  that  will  be  presented  —  the  long 
account  of  silent  years,  of  fierce  regret, 
of  eating  remorse,  and  of  bleak  living, 
empty  of  music. 

So  Youth  goes  on  dancing;  while  some 
of  those  who  have  paid  the  price  stand 
by,  watching  the  pleasant  whirl  and  try- 
134 


ACQUAINTANCE  WITH  GRIEF 

ing  to  make  themselves  heard:  "Do  be 
more  prudent,"  these  poor  folk  say;  "do 
lay  up  treasure  against  the  inevitable  day 
of  payment,  so  that  you  may  not  stand 
outside  the  glow,  shivering,  as  we  shiver 
now,  in  poverty."  But  their  voices  are 
hardly  heard  in  the  cheerful  din!  It  is 
when  they  stand  thus,  shivering,  trying 
to  caution  their  fellows,  that  some  of 
them  say  to  themselves,  "The  price  was 
very  high!"  If  they  have  really  entered 
into  the  passion  of  the  music,  if  they 
have  really  lived,  they  are  able  to  add, 
"but  it  was  not  too  high!  It  is  better 
to  have  had  Love  and  happiness,  and 
then  pain,  than  no  pain  and  no  Love. 
If  only  I  did  not  have  to  remember  the 
waste  of  the  days  when  I  was  rich!" 

It  is  against  this  waste  that  one  would 
caution  the  dancers,  the  happy  people, 
if  they  will  but  stop  to  hear ! — not  against 
the  music  and  the  glory,  not  against  the 
fulness  of  living,  but  just  against  waste. 


THE   COMMON   WAY 

For  it  is  waste  which  afterwards  makes 
the  price  seem  so  high. 

There  are  two  kinds  of  waste  of  happi 
ness:  one  is  the  waste  which  comes  from 
unconsciousness  of  the  possession  of  happi 
ness ;  the  other,  the  waste  which  comes 
from  indifference  to  opportunity. 

The  waste  of  unconsciousness  is  the 
most  frequent;  and  it  makes  the  dancers 
just  a  little  less  happy  than  they  ought 
to  be  while  they  are  dancing.  The  waste 
from  indifference  to  opportunity  makes 
them  infinitely  more  unhappy  after  the 
dancing  is  over. 

As  for  unconsciousness  of  happiness, 
just  look  at  the  happy  people  who  are 
unaware  of  their  own  wealth!  It  is  a 
matter  of  course  to  be  happy;  and  with 
astounding  prodigality  they  squander 
the  essentials  of  life; — the  three  things 
which  make  up  their  entire  capital,  the 
three  things  upon  which  human  living 
rests : 

136 


ACQUAINTANCE  WITH  GRIEF 

The  consciousness  of  human  love. 

The  consciousness  of  human  character. 

The  consciousness  of  human  courage. 

These  three  things  are  absolutely  neces 
sary  to  life,  and  most  people  possess  them ; 
yet  very  few  trouble  themselves  to  count 
their  wealth.  We  are  all  too  busy  with 
trivialities.  We  get  up  in  the  morning, 
we  rich  people,  and  our  first  thought  is 
not  of  the  love  that  surrounds  us,  not  of 
the  goodness  of  the  world,  not  of  the 
bravery  of  humanity,  but  of  some  ridic 
ulous  worry,  some  petty  annoyance.  It 
is  as  if  one  held  up  one's  hand  before 
one's  eyes  so  that  one  could  not  see  the 
sun.  Of  course,  the  sun  is  there;  but  the 
hand  hides  it.  We  wake  up  with  a  sigh 
of  remembrance  that  the  front  door  needs 
painting,  and  with  never  a  thought  of 
the  dear  feet  that  will  cross  its  threshold 
just  as  joyfully  whether  it  is  painted  or 
not.  We  accept  Love  with  the  same 
complacent  unconsciousness  that  we  ac- 


THE    COMMON   WAY 

cept  air;  but  without  it  we  should  die. 
Human  character,  too,  the  goodness  of 
our  dear  people,  we  take  as  a  matter  of 
course,  but  without  belief  in  it  we  would 
wish  to  die.  The  courage  of  the  world, 
the  serene  ability  to  endure,  is  an  abso 
lute  commonplace  to  us ;  but  without  the 
knowledge  of  it  we  should  not  dare  to  live 
or  die. 

The  waste  which  there  is  in  happy 
folks'  unconsciousness  of  these  three  es 
sentials  seems  very  astonishing  to  those 
who  no  longer  possess  them.  "She  has 
her  husband  and  children;  and  they  are 
well,  and  they  are  good,  and  they  are 
contented;  and  yet  she  was  actually  un 
happy  because  —  her  dressmaker  disap 
pointed  her!"  says  some  poor  soul  who 
has  paid  the  price  —  a  woman  whose 
house  is  left  unto  her  desolate.  To  such 
a  one  the  whimpering  and  scolding  com 
plaint  about  the  unimportant  seems  an 
incredible  folly,  and  she  is  moved  to  say 
138 


ACQUAINTANCE  WITH  GRIEF 

to  her  complaining  rich  friend,  "Do  stop 
and  remember  that  you  are  rich ;  remem 
ber  all  you  possess!"  But  instead  of  re 
membering  her  wealth,  the  foolish  wom 
an  is  bewailing  her  poverty;  she  is  con 
sumed  with  worry  over  unimportant 
things.  The  dressmaker  brings  tears 
to  her  eyes;  the  domestic  problem  keeps 
her  awake  at  night;  an  invitation  which 
does  not  come  turns  the  world  black  be 
fore  her. 

Shame!  says  the  poor  creature  whose 
sense  of  proportion  has  been  born  in  some 
bitter  hour  of  fear  or  bereavement  or 
wrong-doing. 

And  it  is  a  shame — a  shame  for  people 
who  have  in  their  lives  the  consciousness 
of  Love  and  Character  and  Courage,  to 
fall  into  the  wasteful  folly  of  unhappi- 
ness  about  the  unimportant.  It  would  be 
bad  enough  if  this  shameful  kind  of  un- 
happiness  could  be  confined  to  the  per 
son  who  experiences  it;  but,  unfortu- 
139 


THE   COMMON   WAY 

nately,  its  black  edge  spreads  over  on 
to  other  lives.  No  woman  who  comes 
down  to  her  breakfast-table  with  what 
her  son  frankly  calls  a  "grouch  on"  is 
grouchy  to  herself  alone.  Her  husband 
feels  it;  that  same  candid  son  feels  it; 
her  servants  feel  it;  and  so  the  day  falls 
a  little  more  darkly  than  it  need  on  this 
dear,  troubled,  beautiful  world. 

It  is  certainly  very  curious  how  rarely 
we  stop  to  reflect  upon  the  duty  of  being 
conscious  of  our  happiness,  of  being  pleas 
ant,  in  fact,  for  the  sake  of  other  people's 
happiness.  And  it  is  so  simple  a  duty, 
too,  always  at  our  hand!  It  does  not 
need  that  we  shall  go  out  and  look  for  it, 
as  we  might  look  for  a  high  deed  to  do — 
a  dragon  to  slay,  a  movement  to  reform 
the  world,  a  vocation,  a  martyrdom. 
Sometimes  we  have  to  hunt  for  such 
things;  while  right  at  hand  is  this  great 
and  simple  and  serious  opportunity:  the 
opportunity  of  being  pleasant. 
140 


ACQUAINTANCE  WITH  GRIEF 

Perhaps  just  pleasantness  has  not  a 
very  heroic  sound;  but  the  human  heart, 
that,  knowing  its  own  bitterness,  can  yet 
carry  itself  cheerfully,  is  not  without 
heroism.  Indeed,  if  that  human  heart 
does  no  more  than  hold  its  tongue  about 
its  own  aches  and  pains,  it  has  a  certain 
moral  value  that  the  world  cannot  afford 
to  lose.  "Pleasantness"  does  not  sound 
as  well  as  self  -  sacrifice  or  wisdom  or 
spirituality;  but  it  may  include  all  these 
great  words.  And  certainly  just  to  start 
one's  husband  out  to  his  work  cheerily; 
to  make  the  hobbledehoy  of  a  son  feel  a 
gentler  and  sweeter  sentiment  towards 
women  because  of  his  own  mother's  sound, 
sweet  gayety  and  strength;  to  help  one's 
servants  to  put  good-humor  and  friend 
liness  into  their  service  —  these  things 
make  for  righteousness  in  the  world.  And 
a  sense  of  proportion  as  to  what  is  worth 
worrying  about — in  other  words,  a  con 
sciousness  of  one's  own  wealth — will  bring 
141 


THE  COMMON  WAY 

these  things  about  to  a  wonderful  de 
gree.  But  to  get  this  sense  of  propor 
tion,  one  must  deliberately  take  account 
of  stock. 

Just  how  rich  am  I  ? 

It  is  astonishing  what  a  good,  healthy 
shame  is  developed  by  such  an  inventory! 
Take  some  sleepless  night,  when  all  the 
annoyances  of  the  day  buzz  over  and  over 
in  the  tired  brain — the  stair  -  carpet  that 
is  beginning  to  show  signs  of  wear;  the 
cook's  evident  dissatisfaction;  the  criti 
cism  that  one's  husband's  mother  made 
on  the  children's  manners,  and  —  well, 
yes;  the  children's  manners,  which  cer 
tainly  are  bad!  —  when  over  and  over 
these  miserable  things  prick  the  tired 
mind,  make  out  the  inventory. 

Count  your  blessings. 

The  idea  brings  instantly  a  shock  of 
interest  to  the  complaining  soul.  Where 
shall  one  begin?  What  is  the  most  im 
portant  blessing?  Probably  most  of  us 
142 


ACQUAINTANCE   WITH  GRIEF 

would  put  love  first;  but,  once  started, 
the  blessings  press  for  recognition  and  the 
pleasant  list  lengthens.  The  buzz  of  front- 
stair  carpets,  and  cooks,  and  even  one's 
mother  -  in  -  law's  truthful  remarks,  dies 
down,  sinks  quite  out  of  sight  in  the  quiet, 
sleepless  dark.  The  blessing  of  human 
love  —  for  they  do  love  her,  the  busy, 
undemonstrative  husband,  the  noisy  chil 
dren,  and  even  the  critical  and  conscien 
tious  mother-in-law.  The  blessing  of 
human  character — for  they  are  good :  the 
husband,  absorbed  and  perhaps  harassed 
by  business,  is  good,  bless  his  heart! 
dear,  hard-working,  honest  fellow!  and 
the  children  have  no  real  naughtiness 
in  them,  so  the  manners  can  be  mended. 
The  blessing  of  human  courage  —  who 
cares  if  the  carpet  has  holes  in  it? 
who,  in  this  brave  world  of  life  and 
death  and  joy  and  sorrow,  cares  for  a 
thing  like  a  hole  in  the  carpet?  Would 
one  think  of  it  if  that  hard-working  hus- 
143 


THE  COMMON  WAY 

band  were  sick  ?  Would  one  see  it  if  the 
eldest  boy  were  a  bad  fellow,  instead  of 
a  bad-mannered  fellow?  Of  course  not! 
Love,  character,  courage.  The  great  bless 
ings.  ...  As  for  the  little  ones — the  garden, 
and  a  pretty  house  to  live  in,  and  a  good 
complexion  (be  honest  and  count  even  the 
pleasant,  harmless  vanities);  —  but  one 
can't  count  them  all!  One  goes  to  sleep 
long  before  the  list  is  ended.  Well-being, 
alone,  does  not  make  happiness;  there 
must  be  the  consciousness  of  well-being; 
and  this  deliberate  valuation  of  daily 
life  awakes  the  consciousness  of  well- 
being  until  it  glows  like  a  torch  in  a  dark 
place.  The  people  who  have  this  con 
sciousness  are  not  wasteful.  They  let 
no  golden  moment  slip  unrecognized  into 
Eternity,  no  moment  on  which,  in  the 
lean  years,  they  will  look  back  with  amaze 
ment  at  their  own  extravagance  of  un 
consciousness.  They  know  how  rich  they 
are,  and  they  are  grateful.  .  .  . 
144 


ACQUAINTANCE  WITH  GRIEF 

The  other  kind  of  waste  that  comes 
home  to  us  when  Love  pays  the  price  of 
Loving  is  the  waste  of  opportunity. 

The  consciousness  of  this  waste  is  so 
cruel  a  pain  that  those  who  have  felt  it 
wince  at  the  very  thought  of  it.  The 
Piper,  pressing  for  payment,  says,  "Give 
me  your  blessed  memories  of  kind  deeds 
done  for  Love's  sake;  of  tender  words 
spoken;  of  joyous  sacrifice  of  self."  And 
lo,  the  poor  spendthrift,  whose  oppor 
tunities  of  tenderness  and  sacrifice  and 
service  slipped  unheeded  through  his  fin 
gers  in  the  happy  days  of  possession, 
stands  bankrupt,  and  says,  "But,  oh,  I 
have  so  few  such  memories !  Why  was  I 
not  kinder  when  I  had  a  chance?" 

The  human  heart  that  knows  this  black 
poverty  longs  to  caution  the  dancers 
against  their  waste  of  opportunity.  "Re 
member,"  it  says  to  the  happy  folk,  rich 
yet  in  unspent  opportunities,  "oh,  do  re 
member  to  be  kind;  because,  some  day, 
145 


THE    COMMON   WAY 

you  will  be  sorry  if  you  have  to  remem 
ber  that  you  were  unkind  —  or  even  to 
remember  that  you  missed  a  chance  to 
be  kind."  That  last  is,  perhaps,  the  most 
frequent  experience.  Most  of  us  are  not 
guilty  of  any  overt  act;  we  do  not  (let 
us  say)  do  positively  unkind  things;  we 
are  not  cruel  or  brutal,  we  are  simply 
negative.  We  are  not  cruel  —  but  nei 
ther  are  we  tender ;  we  are  not  brutal — 
but  neither  are  we  instant  with  service 
and  sympathy;  we  do  not  say  unkind 
things — but  how  niggardly  we  are  with 
praise ! 

The  looking  back  on  such  wasted  op 
portunities  may  become  an  almost  unen 
durable  pain.  .  .  . 

"  How  doth  Death  speak  of  our  Beloved  ? 
It  sweeps  their  failings  out  of  sight; 
It  shows  our  faults  like  fires  at  night." 

And  how  those  fires  of  memory  con 
sumed  our  happiness!     What  about  the 
146 


ACQUAINTANCE  WITH  GRIEF 

old  people,  to  whose  concerns  and  inter 
ests  we  were  so  cheerfully  indifferent? 
What  would  not  some  of  us  give  now  to 
be  able  to  give  them  some  pleasure? — 
to  tell  them  of  our  admiration  and  love 
(which,  of  course,  we  felt  when  they  were 
here,  but  which,  curiously  enough,  we  so 
rarely  thought  of  mentioning  to  them). 
Yet  old  people  like  appreciation  quite 
as  much  as  young  people;  in  fact,  a  lit 
tle  more,  for  whereas  Youth  is  supremely 
contented  with  itself,  Age  has  its  own 
sad  self-knowledge  of  small  desert;  and 
praise  or  appreciation  may  be  a  balm  to 
old  wounds  of  regret  and  shame.  We 
might  have  been  more  generous  in  praise ; 
we  might  have  been  more  appreciative; 
we  might  have  been  more  patient;  we 
might,  even,  in  our  whirl  of  busy  living, 
have  been  a  little  more  interested  in  their 
interests;  we  might  have  given  them,  in 
some  pause  in  our  happy  affairs,  more 
opportunity  to  talk  about  their  affairs. 
U7 


THE    COMMON   WAY 

We  might,  oh,  we  might  have  gone  to 
see  them  oftener.  .  .  . 

Oh,  Piper,  when  you  demand  of  us 
memories  of  such  duties  done,  of  oppor 
tunities  taken,  we  stand  bankrupt  and 
shivering  before  you! 

This,  then,  is  the  other  caution  that 
one  would  whisper  in  the  dancers'  ears: 
Take  every  chance  you  can  possibly  get  to 
be  kind;  because,  some  day,  there  may  be 
no  more  chances. 

But  just  kindness  seems  such  a  small 
and  unimportant  thing!  If  we  were  bid 
den  to  die  for  the  people  we  love,  how 
gladly  we  would  offer  up  our  lives — it 
would  be  part  of  the  dance.  But  we  are 
not  asked  to  die  for  them,  only  to  live 
for  them ;  only  to  do  the  hundred  small 
things  that  every  day  offers  us;  only  to 
be  ready  with  truth  and  courage  and  ten 
derness  and  service. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  —  any  one  who 
has  stood  by  an  open  grave  will  say  so— 
148 


ACQUAINTANCE  WITH  GRIEF 

there  can  be  no  possible  doubt,  that  only 
memories  of  opportunities  embraced,  of 
duties  done,  or,  rather,  of  privileges  ac 
cepted,  only  such  memories  will  comfort 
us  when  the  price  is  paid.  To  have  to 
look  back  upon  quarrelling  or  selfishness, 
or  even  upon  the  more  negative  pain 
of  mere  leaving  undone  that  which  we 
might  have  done,  is  enough  to  poison 
life.  No  wonder  that  those  who  are  ac 
quainted  with  Grief  cry  out  to  us,  "Oh, 
be  kind,  be  kind,  be  kind!" 

Not  that  kindness  is  going  to  save  us 
from  pain  —  the  measure  of  Love  must 
forever  be  regret.  Those  that  love  most 
regret  most,  for  the  ideal  must  always  be 
unattainable.  If  Love  were  ever  quite 
satisfied,  it  would  mean  that  its  ideal 
was  but  a  poor,  stunted  thing.  No ;  even 
the  Love  that  has  been  most  eager  to 
avail  itself  of  its  opportunities  will  regret, 
and  must  regret,  but  not  with  the  poison 
ous  consciousness  of  waste!  And  such 
149 


THE    COMMON    WAY 

Love  will  at  least  have  so  many  blessed 
memories  that  it  will  not  be  left  bank 
rupt  when  the  day  of  payment  comes. 

But  what  of  those  of  us  who  are  bank 
rupt  now  ?  Is  there  any  comfort  for  us  ? 
Yes,  there  remains  to  us,  while  we  live, 
the  chance  to  profit  by  our  acquaintance 
with  Grief:  Did  we  waste  such  and  such 
opportunities?  Did  we  lose  the  chance 
to  be  what  we  might  have  been  to  one 
beloved?  There  yet  remain  others !  The 
consciousness  of  the  lost  opportunity  may 
be  a  spur,  harrying  us,  to  be  sure,  tear 
ing  us,  it  may  be,  yet  driving  us  into 
the  blessed  consciousness  of  our  wealth. 
Then  we  shall  stop  wasting  it,  and  be 
gin  to  spend  it  nobly  on  the  opportuni 
ties  that  are  standing  so  close  about  us — 
the  opportunity  to  be  kind,  to  be  just,  to 
be  patient,  and,  again,  to  be  kind. 

If  it  does  so  stir  us  —  this  regret  and 
remorse  that  breaks  our  hearts,  at  night, 
alone,  in  the  dark — if  it  does  so  stim- 


ACQUAINTANCE  WITH  GRIEF 

ulate   us,   our   Dead   have   not   died   in 
vain! 

Let  us  take,  then,  from  their  sacred 
hands  the  pain  of  regret  of  an  unreach- 
ed  ideal;  and  with  that  pain  a  new  and 
deep  impulse  to  live  and  love  and  serve; 
and  let  us  call  this  impulse,  thankfully, 
another  gift  from  the  beloved,  the  last, 
and  perhaps  the  best  gift  that  they  have 
given  us — our  dear  Dead! — the  gift  of  a 
serious  consciousness  of  the  richness  and 
the  purpose  of  life. 


CONCERNING  GLASS  HOUSES 

IT  is  only  the  people  who  live  in  glass 
houses  who  are  forbidden  to  throw 
stones. 

All  the  rest  of  us  can  practise  this  fa 
vorite  pastime  of  humanity  with  absolute 
freedom.  And  it  is  wonderful  how  pro 
ficient  we  become — especially  we  women. 
In  early  life  it  is  said  that  boys  can  throw 
stones  better  than  girls;  but  when  both 
reach  maturity,  it  is  quite  different. 

"The  nasty  things  you  women  say 
about  one  another!"  a  man  declares,  with 
a  gasp  of  admiring  astonishment.  "Men 
are  not  in  it  with  you!" 

And   his  humility   is  justified  by  the 


CONCERNING  GLASS  HOUSES 

facts;  we  are  far  more  skilful  than  he  is. 
When  a  man  gossips  he  generally  (not 
always)  picks  up  a  good,  big  cobble 
stone,  and  sends  it,  vigorously  and  openly, 
spinning  through  the  air  to  its  goal  of 
crashing  destruction.  A  woman,  on  the 
contrary,  is  apt  to  use  small,  smooth,  flat 
pebbles  that  "skip,"  which,  after  the  glass 
has  been  broken,  are  not  so  easily  found 
and  brought  back  to  her  with  the  glazier's 
bill;  and  therein,  in  slyness  and  irrespon 
sibility,  she  shows  herself  the  superior  of 
the  male  creature. 

It  is  the  purpose  of  this  paper  to  main 
tain  that  this  interesting  exercise  of 
throwing  stones,  either  cobblestones  or 
pebbles,  is  perfectly  justifiable  when  in 
dulged  in  by  persons,  male  or  female, 
who  do  not  themselves  live  in  glass 
houses.  Once  assure  ourselves  that  we 
have  no  glass  in  our  windows,  and  then 
let  us  sally  forth  to  shatter,  with  a  well- 
directed  missile,  a  neighbor's  poor  pre- 
153 


THE  COMMON  WAY 

tence  of  prosperity,  a  friend's  pitiful 
pride  in  her  oldest  boy  (who  is  behaving 
like  the  very  deuce  at  college);  let  us 
(being  sure  we  have  no  such  substance 
in  our  houses)  send  a  skipping  pebble 
to  call  attention  to  A.'s  horrible  vulgar 
ity  in  quarrelling  with  her  servants;  to 
B.'s  disagreeably  loud  voice;  to  C.'s  un- 
cleaned  brass  door-knob. 

"For  my  part,  I  don't  think  a  woman 
has  any  business  to  pretend  to  be  a  house 
keeper  and  not  keep  her  brasses  clean! 
If  she  is  too  poor  to  have  proper  service, 
why,  then,  let  her  be  honest  and  put  on  a 
knob  which  doesn't  need  cleaning;  but 
Mrs.  C.  always  tries  to  put  her  best  foot 
forward,"  the  clever  thrower  of  stones 
says,  sending  her  pebble  skipping  out 
over  public  opinion;  and  if  she  listens, 
she  will  hear  the  faint  tinkle  of  broken 
glass.  This  lady  has  usually  several 
small  pebbles  of  this  nature.  She  says, 
smiling  good-naturedly,  that  the  Rev. 


CONCERNING  GLASS  HOUSES 

Mr.  Smith's  interest  in  foreign  missions 
is  really  beautiful,  but — but  it  does  not 
put  any  strain  on  his  own  pocket-book! 
She  comments  carelessly  on  Mrs.  Jones's 
complexion;  it  is  charming,  she  says,  so 
girlish;  but  don't  go  too  near  it.  She 
declares,  warmly,  that  Mr.  Robinson  is 
such  a  dear,  good  man,  and  he  deserves 
so  much  credit,  "because,  you  know, 
his  father — "  And  some  one  says,  ea 
gerly,  "Why,  what  about  his  father?" 
"What!  don't  you  know?  my  dear,  he — " 
And  then  the  buried  father's  buried  sin  is 
dug  up  and  paraded  before  gaping  eyes. 
Poor,  good  Mr.  Robinson!  how  hard  he 
has  tried  to  forget  that  decently  interred 
Past,  for  which  he  was  in  no  sense  re 
sponsible;  but  this  skilful  stone-thrower, 
taking  a  gravestone  for  a  target,  is  sure 
to  hit  the  mark.  And  yet,  how  simple 
was  her  remark — indeed,  how  friendly; 
"such  a  good  man!" — what  can  you  say 
better  than  that  about  anybody?  She 


THE   COMMON    WAY 

threw  no  cruel,  bruising  cobblestone.  Ap 
parently  all  her  pebbles  are  harmless; 
sometimes  they  are  marked  by  a  pretty 
wit;  frequently  they  shine  with  a  faint 
phosphorescence  of  truth.  She  uses 
them  when  she  goes  out  to  luncheon,  or 
at  a  tea,  or  as  she  is  coming  away  from 
church.  In  fact,  one  can  use  such  peb 
bles  anywhere,  they  are  so  small  and  con 
venient  and  ready  to  hand.  And,  hav 
ing  used  them,  she  goes  home,  and  her 
husband  makes  the  admiring  remark 
that,  when  it  comes  to  saying  mean 
things,  women  do  certainly  beat  men 
every  time!  And  the  woman,  protest 
ing  that  she  was  only  stating  facts,  fails 
to  hear  the  tinkle  of  broken  glass  from 
her  own  skylight — for  people  are  talking 
about  her ! 

"My  dear,  did  you  ever  see  such  hats? 
And  she's  fifty,  if  she's  a  day.  Why 
don't  people  know  how  to  grow  old  more 
gracefully!" 

156 


CONCERNING  GLASS  HOUSES 

"She  is  terribly  mean  to  her  servants; 
I  hear  that  she  only  takes  two  quarts 
of  milk,  and  uses  every  bit  of  it  up-stairs. 
She  gives  her  girls  condensed  milk !  And 
she  snoops  round  after  they've  gone  to 
bed,  and  looks  into  the  refrigerator  to 
count  the  cold  potatoes." 

"My  dear,  for  all  she  makes  such  a 
splurge  with  that  sealskin  coat  of  hers, 
I  saw,  with  my  own  eyes,  a  great 
hole  in  the  side  of  her  shoe !  I  do 
despise  finery  that  just  covers  up  pov 
erty." 

Well,  well — this  is  very  squalid;  but 
we  know  it  is  true,  this  sort  of  contemp 
tible  gossip ;  we  know  it  so  well  that  we 
need  not  illustrate  it  further: 

I  talk, 

Thou  talkest, 
He  talks. 

We  talk, 
You  talk, 
They  talk. 

157 


THE  COMMON  WAY 

And  all  the  while  glass  comes  crashing 
about  our  ears — for  the  honest  truth  is 
that  everybody  lives  in  a  glass  house.  .  .  . 
"  He  that  is  without  sin  among  you,  let 
him  first  cast  a  stone";  and  the  eager 
crowd  of  respectable  accusers,  burning 
with  shocked  and  smirking  curiosity, 
their  hands  full  of  stones,  their  fingers 
tingling  to  throw  them,  fell  suddenly 
silent.  One  by  one  they  slunk  away,  and 
the  poor  creature,  crouching  on  the 
ground,  her  hot,  miserable  face  hid- 
den  in  her  bent  arm,  was  alone  with 
the  ohly  One  who  might  have  stoned 
her.  ft 

Of  course,  the  old  proverb  about  not 
throwing  stones  lest  our  own  glass  houses 
suffer  i4  a  simple  appeal  to  expediency — 
it  is  material  common-sense,  based  upon 
the  deduction  that  if  you  refrain  from 
hitting  B.,  B.  will  refrain  from  hitting 
you.  As,, a  motive  for  abstaining  from 
gossip,  it  is,  of  course,  better  than  noth- 

158 


CONCERNING  GLASS  HOUSES 

ing.  But,  to  tell  the  truth,  it  is  not  very 
good.  In  the  first  place,  the  deduction  is 
not  quite  sound.  You,  from  a  keen  sense 
of  expediency,  may  refrain  from  hitting 
B.;  but  experience  proves  that  you  can 
not  be  certain  that  B.,  in  consequence, 
will  refrain  from  hitting  you.  You  may 
close  your  lips  with  a  snap  over  a  witty 
remark  in  regard  to  A.'s  inability  to 
grow  old  gracefully,  but  you  have  no 
certainty  that  A.  is  equally  reserved 
upon  the  subject  of  your  amusing  efforts 
to  reduce  your  double  chin.  No;  it  is 
well  to  refrain  from  throwing  stones  on 
the  ground  of  your  own  window-panes, 
but  it  is  better  to  give  the  practice  up 
because  a  quick  imagination  reveals  the 
feelings  of  the  people  whose  window- 
panes  you  have  been  so  gayly  and  so 
ruthlessly  shattering.  Just  here,  how 
ever,  a  disquieting  question  arises: 

"What!  no  conversation  about  people? 
Is  the  world  to  fall  silent?" 
159 


THE    COMMON    WAY 

For,  indeed,  if  we  leave  out  human 
nature,  there  is  comparatively  little  else 
to  talk  about;  all  the  large  and  funda 
mental  things  of  Time  are  rooted  somehow 
in  human  souls.  We  cannot  talk  of  sin  or 
righteousness  or  judgment  without  hu 
man  reference  and  illustration;  we  can 
hardly  talk  of  even  the  trivial  and  unim 
portant  without  personal  allusion.  "My 
garden  is  not  doing  as  well  this  year  as 
last;  but  you  should  see  Mrs.  Smith's 
pansies! — they  are  even  more  discourag 
ing  than  mine."  That  is  the  human  ref 
erence.  Furthermore,  facts  are  facts;  it 
is  a  pity  that  A.  does  not  know  how  to 
grow  old  gracefully,  and  it  is  sad  enough 
that  D.'s  boy  is  behaving  so  badly  at 
college.  If  we  are  to  refrain  entirely 
from  facts  in  relation  to  human  nature, 
we  might  as  well  be  dumb.  Of  course, 
it  is  obvious  that  mere  refraining  is  as 
stultifying  in  one  way  as  throwing  stones 
is  stultifying  in  another  way.  No; 
160 


CONCERNING  GLASS  HOUSES 

I  shall  talk, 
Thou  wilt  talk, 
He  will  talk. 

We  shall  talk, 
You  will  talk, 
They  will  talk, 

because  talking  is  a  human  necessity. 
But  if,  when  we  talk,  Imagination,  just, 
true,  and  kind,  stands  guard  at  our  lips, 
we  shall  not  break  any  windows. 

Imagination,  in  regard  to  the  feelings 
of  our  neighbors,  is  the  beginning  of  re 
form. 

For  there  are  very  few  of  us  who,  sally 
ing  forth  with  our  little  bags  of  pebbles, 
would  throw  a  single  one  of  them  if,  by 
some  magical  process,  we  could  know 
how  the  broken  glass  would  hurt;  if  we 
could  see  the  blood  flow,  and  hear  the 
cry  of  pain.  That  is  proved  by  the  fact 
that  we  so  rarely  throw  our  stones  when 
the  householder  happens  to  be  about;  of 
course,  fear  has  something  to  do  with  our 
161 


THE  COMMON  WAY 

reticence  in  her  presence ;  it  takes  a  good 
deal  of  courage  to  say  right  out  to  Mrs. 
Smith's  face  that  we  understand  that 
her  husband  is  making  a  fool  of  himself 
with  a  chorus  girl?  We  might  get  into 
trouble  with  Mr.  Smith  if  we  were  caught 
throwing  stones  at  his  glass  house;  but 
really,  apart  from  fear,  most  of  us  could 
not  bear  to  witness  poor  Mrs.  Smith's 
pain.  When  she  is  not  present,  it  is  a 
different  matter;  we  are  not  hampered 
by  anything  so  disagreeable  as  the  sight 
of  her  suffering.  So  it  is  quite  obvious 
that  what  we  need  to  break  up  the  habit 
of  stone-throwing  is  to  cultivate  a  ham 
pering  consciousness  of  the  pain  it  causes. 
We  need  to  know  just  how  the  house 
holder  feels  when  she  looks  at  her  cracked 
window-panes  or  stands  under  some  shat 
tered  skylight  of  hope  and  love. 

We  must  have  imagination. 

But,  unfortunately,  we  are  not  all  born 
with  this  heavenly  vision;  in  fact,  we  are, 
162 


CONCERNING  GLASS  HOUSES 

most  of  us,  born  without  it,  as  witness 
the  innate  cruelty  of  children.  A  child 
pulls  off  a  fly's  legs,  slowly,  one  by  one, 
with  keen  interest  and  placid  uncon 
sciousness  of  any  discomfort  on  the  fly's 
part.  A  little  later  he  ties  a  tin  pan  to 
a  dog's  tail,  or  sticks  pins  in  a  toad.  Yet 
he  is  not  by  any  means  a  bad  boy  —  he 
is  only  without  imagination.  Little  by 
little,  however,  imagination  usually  de 
velops,  for  most  of  us  adult  human 
creatures  do  not  enjoy  pulling  off  a  fly's 
leg.  We  are  too  conscious  of  the  fly's 
objections.  This  consciousness,  which  in 
terferes  with  the  pleasures  of  childhood, 
is  caused  by  the  comparative  ease  with 
which,  as  we  grow  older  and  experience 
bodily  pain  ourselves,  we  can  imagine 
unpleasant  physical  sensations.  We  do 
not  so  easily  imagine  unpleasant  mental 
or  spiritual  sensations.  So  we  talk,  throw 
ing  our  stones  at  our  neighbors'  souls  as 
carelessly  as  the  boy  pulls  off  the  fly's  leg. 
163 


THE    COMMON    WAY 

Now,  taking  it  for  granted  that  we  are 
not  any  more  malicious  than  the  boy, 
taking  it  for  granted  that  we  are  only 
spiritually  unimaginative,  and  that  we 
would  really  like  to  cultivate  a  faculty 
which,  permitting  conversation  in  the 
world,  would  spare  other  people's  glass 
houses,  it  is  helpful  to  start  with  a  cer 
tain  thesis  and  work  from  that — namely, 
That  we  all  mean  well. 

This  assertion  is  the  outgrowth  of  self- 
knowledge;  for  each  of  us,  down  deep 
under  our  poor,  unsatisfactory  living, 
each  one  of  us  knows  that  we  do  mean 
well,  and  experience  has  taught  us  that 
human  nature  is  pretty  much  the  same; 
we  are  all,  under  the  skin  of  circumstance, 
a  good  deal  alike.  So  we  admit  that  it 
is  an  honest  working  hypothesis  to  say 
"  we  all  mean  well." 

Of  course,  it  is  a  poor,  little,  cheap 
phrase,  but  what  a  pathetic  truth  it  tells 
of  all  of  us! — the  truth  of  effort  and  of 
164 


CONCERNING  GLASS  HOUSES 

failure ;  and  that  is  the  summing  -  up  of 
human  nature,  for  without  effort  we  should 
be  animals,  and  without  failure  we  should 
be  gods.  Effort  means  an  ideal;  and 
failure  means  achievement — to  a  degree. 
Yes;  we  mean  well.  .  .  .  The  woman  who 
does  riot  keep  her  brasses  clean  would  un 
doubtedly  like  to  see  them  shining,  if 
only  she  could  afford  to  employ  a  parlor 
maid.  The  silly  person  who  wears  a  fine 
coat  and  ragged  shoes  has  a  keener  feel 
ing  for  what  is  pretty  than  what  is  neces 
sary.  Oh ,  of  course,  she  is  a  great  fool ;  but 
if  you  stop  to  think  of  it,  it  is  very  pathet 
ic  to  be  a  fool?  If,  by  imagination,  the 
pathos  of  foolishness  once  strikes  us,  we 
shall  not  want  to  throw  the  witty  pebble 
that  is  all  ready  between  our  fingers.  An 
uneasy  consciousness  will  grow  in  our 
minds  that  we  ourselves  are  not  always 
overwise.  How  it  would  cut  and  hurt 
to  have  somebody  (as  clever  as  ourselfjes) 
show  up  our  silliness  with  an  aphorism, 

165 


THE    COMMON    WAY 

or  our  folly  in  a  neatly  turned  phrase! 
And  it  could  be  done.  We  could  do  it 
ourselves,  if  the  folly  was  not  our  own. 
Just  think  of  the  things  we  have  done  and 
said  "which  make  the  midnight  pillow 
burn  with  shame  " !  Just  silly  things,  not 
bad.  Think  of  the  blunders  in  our  house 
keeping,  which  we  really  wanted  to  im 
prove;  of  our  well-meant,  clumsy  truth- 
telling  to  a  friend;  think  of  our  gushing 
confidences  (which  our  husbands  call 
"slopping  over"),  that  seemed  at  the 
moment  just  real  friendship,  but  that  we 
so  deeply  regret  the  next  day;  think  of 
our  petty  efforts  at  economy,  prompted 
by  some  painful  anxiety  that  nobody 
knows  anything  about.  How  hard  we 
tried!  We  did  mean  well.  It  was  not 
stinginess  that  made  us  go  and  look  into 
the  refrigerator  to  see  that  that  cold  po 
tato  had  not  been  thrown  away,  it  was 
just  a  worried  sense  of  responsibility;  no 
doubt  our  way  of  doing  it,  "snooping 
166 


CONCERNING  GLASS  HOUSES 

about  after  the  servants  had  gone  to  bed  " 
(that  was  the  way  the  stone-throwers  ex 
pressed  it) — no  doubt  our  method  was 
rather  foolish;  but  we  did  want  to  do 
what  was  right.  .  .  .  Yes,  Heaven  send 
that  no  friend  with  a  pocketful  of  peb 
bles  be  tempted  by  the  shine  and  glim 
mer  of  our  glass  houses — for,  indeed,  we 
meant  well ! 

Here  it  is — the  knowledge  in  which 
imagination  must  take  root  if  stone- 
throwing  is  ever  to  go  out  of  fashion  and 
the  world  become  a  pleasant  place  to 
live  in — namely,  that  most  everybody  else 
means  well,  too. 

The  creed  of  the  imaginative  and  kind 
ly  heart  is  brief: 

"There  is  so  much  good  in  the  worst  of  us, 
There  is  so  much  bad  in  the  best  of  us, 
That  it  ill  becomes  any  one  of  us 
To  throw  stones  at  the  rest  of  us." 


CONCERNING    CHRISTMAS 
GIVING 


I'LL  attend  to  it  after  the  holidays." 
"Just  as  soon  as  Christmas  is  over, 
I'll  take  the  matter  up." 

"Oh,  I  can't  go  to  any  committee 
meetings  in  December!  I'm  so  busy." 

"Calls?  No,  indeed!  I  don't  make 
calls  at  this  time  of  year.  I  have  too 
much  to  do." 

And  what  is  she  doing,  this  busy  wom 
an?  She  is  making  out  long  lists  of 
names,  and  writing  against  each  name  a 
"present"  of  one  kind  or  another;  she  is 
lying  awake  at  night,  jaded  with  a  day's 
shopping,  and  thinking  who  has  been  over- 
168 


CONCERNING  CHRISTMAS  GIVING 

looked.  Heavens!  she  forgot  Mary  Rob 
inson  !  Mary  sent  a  sachet-bag  last  Christ 
mas,  and,  of  course,  something  must  be 
sent  her  this  Christmas;  and  then  the 
Giver-of-gifts  groans  and  turns  on  her 
sleepless  pillow,  and  wishes  Mary  and  her 
sachet-bag  in  ballyhack!  Is  this  an  ex 
aggeration?  Alas!  no;  it  may  even  go 
further;  this  sleepless  lady,  revolving  her 
Christmas  debts  in  her  tired  mind,  will 
suddenly,  with  a  pang  of  relief,  bethink 
her  of  a  certain  little  spool-box  of  gray 
linen,  painted  with  snow-drops  and  tied 
with  pink  ribbon;  just  the  thing  for  Mary 
Robinson.  To  be  sure,  last  Christmas 
this  spool-box  was  sent  to  her.  It  came 
with  bravery  of  white  paper  and  holly 
sprig  and  gay  ribbons ;  there  was  a  "  Merry 
Christmas"  card  tucked  into  one  corner, 
which  announced  that  the  box  brought 
"Jane  Smith's  love  and  best  wishes." 
The  Giver-of-gifts  read  that  card,  opened 
the  gay  little  package,  looked  at  the  spool - 
"  169 


THE  COMMON  WAY 

box;  said,  "Oh,  how  kind!— so  pretty." 
Then,  after  displaying  it  for  a  moment 
to  her  family  (who  showed  indifferent 
interest),  she  had  put  it  on  her  show 
counter — a  small  table,  where  she  stacked 
the  loot  of  the  Day.  Christmas  night  she 
had  sat  down  at  her  desk  with  another 
list — "things  to  be  acknowledged." 

"Oh,  now,  look  here,  dear,"  growled  a 
friendly  voice  at  the  fireside,  "do  drop 
that  nonsense,  and  go  to  bed.  You  are 
tired  out." 

"I  can't,  dear,"  she  had  sighed;  "I've 
got  to  get  my  thanks  off." 

"Thanks!"  the  kindly  growl  went  on. 
"Oh,  you.  women! — you  call  it  'thanks,' 
do  you?  It's  execrations;  'curses,  not 
loud,  but  deep." 

"Oh,  Tom  dear,  not  before  the  children ! 
I'll  get  through  in  a  quarter  of  an  hour." 

"  Hang  Christmas!"  the  Bear  said,  anx 
iously—for,  indeed,  the  Giver-of -gifts  did 
look  worn  out.     But  she  wrote  a  very 
170 


CONCERNING  CHRISTMAS  GIVING 

pretty  note  to  Jane  Smith;  she  said  the 
spool-box  was  perfectly  sweet,  and  Jane 
was  perfectly  dear  to  send  it;  licked  a 
stamp  onto  the  envelope  and  with  a 
tired  sigh  told  her  Bear  that  she  had 
got  most  of  those  dreadful  notes  written, 
thank  Heaven!  The  next  day  the  spool- 
box,  carefully  wrapped  up  to  keep  it  clean, 
was  put  away  (with  A.'s  pin-cushion,  and 
B.'s  silver  pen -holder,  and  C.'s  cut-glass 
mucilage  bottle,  etc.)  on  the  top  shelf  of 
the  spare-room  closet.  This  was  not  as 
ungracious  as  it  looked;  the  Giver-of -gifts, 
as  it  happens,  never  uses  spool-boxes; 
she  has  already  two  pin-cushions  for 
every  bedroom  in  the  house,  and  her  little 
boy  gave  her  a  silver  pen-holder  on  her 
last  birthday.  So  why  should  not  the 
accumulation  of  the  unnecessary  be  put  on 
the  top  shelf  of  the  spare-room  closet? 

This  shelf  is  one  of  the  things  the  tired 
woman  thinks  of  as  she  lies  awake,  har 
assed  by  her  "debts."     She  must  give 
171 


THE  COMMON  WAY 

something  to  A.,  because  A.  gave  some 
thing  to  her;  to  B.  and  to  C.,  for  the  same 
timid  and  foolish  reason.  Oh,  if  she  could 
only  give  back  that  pin-cushion,  what  a 
relief  to  mind  and  purse!  It  is  then  that 
the  insidious  thought  of  C.'s  mucilage 
bottle  comes  to  her,  just  as,  a  little  while 
ago,  she  thought  of  the  spool -box  which 
it  was  so  perfectly  dear  in  Jane  Smith  to 
give.  But  there  is  a  haunting  fear  at  the 
back  of  the  tired  mind :  suppose  she  should 
make  a  mistake  ?  Suppose,  by  some  hor 
rid  freak  of  memory,  she  should  send  C.'s 
bottle  to  C.  ?  But  no;  the  very  day  after 
Christmas,  last  year,  she  had  written  the 
donor's  names  on  those  things  on  the 
top  shelf.  Perhaps  this  very  contingency 
was  latent  in  her  mind  at  the  time.  Of 
course,  there  remains  the  ghastly  chance 
that  Jane  Smith  showed  Mary  Robinson 
that  spool-box  before  she  sent  it —  ?  But, 
no!  that  is  too  dreadful  a  thought.  It 
shall  go,  neatly  wrapped  up  in  white  pa- 
172 


CONCERNING  CHRISTMAS  GIVING 

per,  tied  with  ribbons  (a  little  wider  than 
last  year),  with  a  Christmas-card  (slightly 
more  expensive  than  the  one  Jane  used), 
and  Mary  will  receive  it,  and  say,  "Oh, 
how  kind! — so  pretty!"  And  write  her 
note  of  thanks  Christmas  evening,  de 
claring  that  the  box  is  perfectly  sweet,  and 
the  tired  Giver  perfectly  dear  to  have 
thought  of  her. 

" Thought  of  her!"  how  much  thought, 
my  mistresses,  has  been  here?  How 
much  sentiment,  how  much  love,  how 
much  sense  of  fitness,  how  much  honor 
for  and  commemoration  of  the  Supreme 
Gift  to  the  world  ?  Travesty,  deceit,  dis 
honor!  She  is  not  only  "tired"  because 
of  her  folly,  this  silly  woman;  she  is  worse 
than  tired;  she  is  belittled  in  her  own 
eyes,  she  is  coarsened  in  her  instincts,  she 
is  blunted  in  her  spiritual  perceptions. 
Whereas  this  year  she  may  wince  in  doing 
up  that  spool -box,  next  year  she  will 
make  a  joke  of  it. 

173 


THE    COMMON   WAY 

No  one  can  do  dishonor  to  the  Ideal 
and  remain  unspotted. 

Can  we,  any  of  us,  who  have  secretly 
used  Jane's  spool-box  to  pay  our  debts  to 
Mary,  deny  this?  Unless  the  Giver-of- 
gifts  is  willing  that  Jane  should  know  how 
her  gift  has  been  used,  and  that  Mary 
should  be  aware  of  the  history  of  the 
pretty  box  that  comes  to  her  bearing 
"love  and  best  wishes,"  unless  the  Christ 
mas  debtor  is  willing  to  have  everything 
open  and  above-board,  she  must  admit 
her  shame,  and  realize  that  her  fatigued 
deceit  has  left  a  spot  upon  her  soul.  Of 
course,  if  she  is  able  to  say  to  Mary  Robin 
son,  "This  spool-box  was  given  to  me; 
but  I  don't  care  to  use  it  myself,  so  I  am 
sending  it  to  you,  with  Christmas  greet 
ings,"  or  something  to  that  effect,  all  is 
well.  Mary  may  not  be  particularly  flat 
tered,  but  the  Ideal  of  Christmas  giving 
is  not  degraded,  and  the  Christmas  at 
mosphere  is  just  so  much  clearer  and 
174 


CONCERNING  CHRISTMAS  GIVING 

purer,  just  so  much  more  worthy  of  the 
Divine  Gift  which  the  poor,  dishonored 
Day  is  meant  to  mark.  But  how  many 
of  us  would  be  willing  to  say  this  ?  How 
secret  we  are  about  that  spare -room 
closet! 

And  secrecy  is  confession. 

When  we  look  seriously  at  the  flippant 
degradation  of  Christmas,  which  has  sud 
denly  become  so  marked,  and  at  the  spir 
itual  decadence  which  accompanies  it,  we 
shall  probably,  most  of  us,  say  that  it  is 
time  to  call  a  halt.  This  miserable  and 
foolish  business  of  giving  because  we  have 
received,  encouraged  as  it  is  by  shop 
keepers,  fed  by  our  own  mean  ambition 
and  vanity,  nourished  by  a  paltry  un 
willingness  to  "  be  under  obligations,"  and 
by  the  mere  fashion  of  the  period  which 
decrees  Christmas  excesses  —  this  silly 
and  fatiguing  custom  has  got  to  stop — 
and  women  are  the  folk  to  stop  it !  Here 
is  a  reform  fresh  to  our  hands.  Here  is 


THE  COMMON  WAY 

a  work  waiting  for  us.  It  needs  common- 
sense,  not  legislation;  it  needs  reverent 
souls,  not  political  power.  And  the  time 
is  ripe  for  it  now. 

"  What!  no  Christmas ?"  some  one  says, 
shocked  and  disapproving.  On  the  con 
trary,  the  very  fullest  and  most  beautiful 
Christmas. 

"  But  no  presents  ?" 

Presents  ?  Of  course  there  must  be  pres 
ents.  The  world  cannot  lose  the  deep 
excitement  of  childhood  during  all  the 
busy,  happy  weeks  before  the  2 5th  of 
December;  it  cannot  lose  the  delight  of 
surprised  love,  the  pleasant  warmth  of 
the  heart  to  find  that  friendship  remem 
bers.  We  cannot  give  these  things  up. 
They  are  dear  and  sacred  in  themselves; 
dearer  and  more  sacred  when  they  are 
gathered  up  in  reverent  hearts,  and  held, 
as  one  holds  a  jewel  in  the  sunshine,  to 
catch  the  light  that  streams  from  a  Baby 
cradled  "between  two  beasties,"  in  a 


CONCERNING  CHRISTMAS  GIVING 

thatched  stable  near  the  Inn.  No;  they 
were  Wise  Men,  it  will  be  remembered,  who 
bore  gifts  of  gold,  frankincense,  and  myrrh : 

"  Three  caskets  they  bore  on  their  saddle-bows, 
Three  caskets  of  gold,  with  golden  keys; 
Their  robes  were  of  crimson  silk,  with  rows 
Of  bells  and  pomegranates  and  furbelows, 
Their   turbans    like    blossoming    almond- 
trees." 

Thus,  out  of  the  East,  that  first  Christ 
mas,  bearing  gifts,  rode  the  Wise  Men. 
Let  us,  too,  bear  gifts,  but  let  us  be  wise! 
Let  us  array  ourselves  against  the  cheap 
and  tawdry  desecration  of  the  Day — but 
not  against  the  crimson  robes,  and  the 
rows  of  bells  and  pomegranates  and  fur 
belows,  the  caskets  and  the  perfumes, 
and  all  the  signs  and  symbols  of  peace  and 
good-will. 

Perhaps  the  first  step  towards  wisdom 

will  be  to  fill  ourselves  with  the  spirit  of 

Christmas,  the  deep  purpose  of  service 

and  good-will  and  peace.     This  is,  how- 

177 


THE  COMMON  WAY 

ever,  the  intimate  affair  of  each  soul,  and 
does  not  admit  of  rule  or  precept;  it  is 
the  subjective  side  of  Christmas.  It  is 
the  objective  side  that  calls  so  loudly  for 
reform — calls  more  loudly  each  year,  for 
certainly  things  are  getting  rapidly  worse. 
Twenty-five  years  ago,  Christmas  was  not 
the  burden  that  it  is  now;  there  was  less 
haggling  and  weighing,  less  quid  pro  quo, 
less  fatigue  of  body,  less  weariness  of 
soul;  and,  most  of  all,  there  was  less 
loading  up  with  trash.  The  statement  of 
a  certain  shopkeeper  in  this  connection 
may  be  taken  as  typical  of  the  whole  sit 
uation. 

"Why,"  inquired  a  customer,  "do  you 
have  these  dreadful  things  for  sale?" 

The  shopkeeper  laughed.  "Yes,  they 
are  dreadful,"  he  admitted.  And,  indeed, 
they  were  —  gift -books  bound  in  plush, 
with  "  hand-painted  "  landscapes  enclosed 
in  gilt  filigree,  fastened,  somehow,  to  the 
covers.  They  were,  in  every  detail,  a  tri- 
178 


CONCERNING  CHRISTMAS  GIVING 

umph  of  bad  taste.  And  they  were  all 
ticketed  $10.  "Of  course  they  are  dread 
ful,"  this  intelligent  man  said,  ''but  what 
can  I  do  ?  People  want  something  that 
shows  money .  You  don't  know  how 
many  people  come  in  at  Christmas-time 
and  say :  '  I  want  to  buy  a  present  for  ten 
dollars  —  I  don't  care  what.'  Then  the 
clerk  shows  this  gift -book,  and  they  pay 
their  ten  dollars  and  walk  out.  Half  of 
'em  don't  even  look  inside;  it's  the  ten 
dollars'  worth  of  cover  they  want." 

Now  could  there  be  anything  more 
melancholy  than  such  Christmas  giving? 
— unless,  indeed,  it  is  the  melancholy  of 
the  bargain-counters  of  department  stores 
just  before  Christmas,  or  the  melancholy 
of  the  out-of-town  cars,  crowded  with 
weary  women  lugging  home  presents  that 
they  feel  obliged  to  give  to  persons  who 
do  not  wish  to  receive  them.  And  each 
year  more  such  presents  are  being  given, 
more  "debts"  are  being  incurred,  more 
179 


THE   COMMON   WAY 

spare-room  closets  are  used  as  clearing 
houses.  We  want  to  realize  this  in  all 
its  force  before  we  draw  up  our  declara 
tion  of  Reform,  the  first  paragraph  of 
which  is  that  we  pledge  ourselves  to  the 
honor  and  glory  of  Christmas! 

The  next  may  be  the  assertion  of  our 
purpose  to^express  the  spirit  of  Christmas 
by  gifts  which  shall  signify  one  of  three 
things  (or,  perhaps,  all  of  them): 

Love; 

Friendship; 
Human  kindness. 

Such  gifts  do  not  imply  money;  they  do 
not  necessitate  fatigue;  they  have  noth 
ing  to  do  with  debtors  and  creditors ;  and 
they  never  know  the  secrecy  which  is 
shame. 

The  moment  we  put  our  Christmas  giv 
ing  on  this  basis,  we  draw  the  first  breath 
of  freedom;  for  we  shall  not  give  a  single 
present  we  don't  want  to  give.     Think  of 
180 


CONCERNING  CHRISTMAS  GIVING 

that  —  giving  only  what  our  hearts 
prompt  us  to  give!  Why,  it  cuts  that 
long  list  in  half,  right  away.  There 
is  no  lying  awake  at  night  to  think  how 
on  earth  we  are  going  to  repay  Mary  Rob 
inson  ;  for  if  she  loved  us  when  she  sent 
that  spool-box,  we  are  not  her  debtors. 
We  owe  nothing  but  love  to  one  another. 
And  if  she  did  not  love  us,  so  much  the 
worse  for  Mary !  and  it  is  the  merest  kind 
ness  to  refrain  from  "paying  back,"  so 
that  another  Christmas  she  may  be  free, 
too. 

Of  course,  this  plan  of  action  will  not 
abolish  spool -boxes;  it  will  only  make 
them  appropriate;  it  will  bestow  them 
where  they  belong — for  some  there  be  who 
like  spool-boxes.  And  it  will  not  abolish 
the  thought  and  planning — only  it  will  be 
pleasant  thought,  not  anxious  and  har 
assed  and  perhaps  (such  things  have  been 
known!)  bad-tempered  thought.  In  our 
Reform  we  will  have  to  think,  and  think 
181 


THE    COMMON   WAY 

hard.  The  giving  of  gifts,  even  in  the 
right  spirit,  is  a  difficult  business,  for  who 
can  tell  what  other  people  want?  How 
many  sighs  are  breathed  on  Christmas 
morning : 

"  Oh,  dear,  I  did  want  a  ring,  but  I  hate 
opals!" 

"Well,  there,  I'm  sure  it  was  very  kind 
in  William — but  I  should  so  much  rather 
have  had  a  really  handsome  card-case 
than  this  purse.  Not  but  that  it's  very 
nice,  only — "  and  then  a  sigh. 

"Yes,  I  did  want  books.  But — well, 
I  hate  poetry.  Still,  this  is  very  interest 
ing,  of  course — "  and  so  on. 

Smothered  or  audible  sighs,  as  the 
breeding  of  the  recipient  may  suggest; 
but  sighs,  all  the  same. 

Let  us  say  that  in  giving  the  opals  and 
the  purse  there  was,  on  the  part  of  the 
giver,  no  violation  of  the  spirit  of  Christ 
mas.  It  was  only  the  chance  of  war,  so 
to  speak — you  may  hit  or  you  may  miss ; 
182 


CONCERNING  CHRISTMAS  GIVING 

but  the  results  were  none  the  less  un 
satisfactory  all  round,  for  we  all  want  to 
hit.  So,  of  course,  the  thinking  and  plan 
ning  must  go  on,  even  when  we  have  re 
formed  ;  but  we  will  swear  to  ourselves  that 
it  shall  be  done  with  peace,  or  not  done 
at  all.  "/  am  making  a  linen  centrepiece 
for  you''  wrote  one  who  was  in  the 
spirit  on  the  Lord's  Day,  "but  it  will  not 
be  finished  by  the  2$th,  because  1  have 
been  so  much  occupied  that  I  could  not 
get  time  for  embroidery  —  and  I  would 
not  put  in  a  single  stitch  that  was  hurried 
or  worried.  1  want  it  to  carry  to  you 
nothing  but  pleasantness  and  peace." 

No;  we  reformers  will  think  and  plan, 
joyfully,  and  endeavor  not  to  give  poetry 
to  the  prosaic,  nor  opals  to  the  supersti 
tious.  But  as  it  is  so  hard,  even  for  di 
vining  love,  to  be  sure  on  these  matters, 
we  might  take  one  further  step  in  our 
Reform:  where  any  uncertainty  exists,  let 
us  give  as  a  token  of  love,  or  friendship,  or 
183 


THE   COMMON   WAY 

human  kindness,  something  that,  while 
expressing  these  things,  will,  at  least,  be 
harmless.  Let  it  be  something  that  does 
not  last;  that  brings  the  meaning  and 
vanishes!  Something  that  never  will 
know  the  indignity  of  the  top  shelf  of  a 
spare-room  closet. 

A  knock  at  a  friend's  door  on  Christ 
mas  morning,  and  the  clasp  of  a  hand, 
brings  the  meaning  of  the  day.  A  grow 
ing  plant  bears  it.  Yes,  the  loaf  of 
bread,  the  jug  of  wine,  but,  most  of  all, 
thou  beside  me,  singing  in  the  wilderness! 
—the  personal  revelation  carries  this 
sacred  meaning. 

Suppose  a  note  came  on  Christmas  Day, 
saying,  not,  "I  send  my  love  and  best 
wishes  with  this  spool -box,"  but,  "7  want 
you  to  know  that  your  patience,  or  courage, 
or  tenderness,  during  this  last  year,  will  help 
me  to  live  more  bravely  and  courageously 
and  lovingly  this  year."  What  a  Christ 
mas  present  the  receipt  of  such  a  letter 
184 


CONCERNING  CHRISTMAS  GIVING 

would  be  to  any  one  of  us!  what  a  gift 
for  any  one  of  us  to  send  to  the  human 
heart  that  has  given  us  courage  for  the 
burden  and  heat  of  the  day!  Compare  it 
with  the  contents  of  the  spare-room  closet. 

To  be  sure,  such  a  message  of  the  soul 
cannot  often  be  sent,  for  the  people  whose 
courage  helps  us  to  live  are  not  too  plenty. 
But  there  are  many  plain  folk,  folk  like 
ourselves,  who  certainly  mean  well,  even 
if  they  are  not  inspiring;  folk  to  whom 
we  want  to  say  "Merry  Christmas!" — 
and  to  put  into  their  hands  some  sign  of 
our  words.  To  these  people,  if  we  do  not 
know  clearly  what  they  want,  let  us  give 
the  evanescent  and  vanishing  symbol  of 
the  meaning  of  Christmas  and  of  the 
peace  and  good-will  that  we  wish  them. 

Thus  shall  Christmas  be  lifted  from  the 
dust  of  trivialities  into  which  we  have 
flung  it. 

And  thus  shall  we  be  lifted  to  the  level 
of  Christmas! 

13  185 


TO  THE  GIRL  WHO  WRITES 


THIS  girl  is  rather  more  frequent  than 
she  used  to  be.  At  least,  she  is  more 
obvious,  because,  whereas  she  used  to 
write  her  poems  or  essays  or  stories  only 
for  her  own  eyes,  or  for  those  of  her 
dearest  friend,  she  writes  them  now  with 
the  not  unreasonable  expectation  that 
they  shall  be  for  everybody's  eyes.  Such 
expectation  is  so  encouraging  that  the 
number  of  Girls  who  Write  has  greatly 
increased. 

The  hope  of  publication  has  brought 

a  new  element  into  such  writing,  which  is 

both    helpful    and    dangerous.     Helpful, 

because  it  makes  the  Girl  who  Writes 

186 


TO  THE  GIRL  WHO  WRITES 

more  careful  in  her  work;  she  gives  more 
thought  to  the  mere  mechanical  detail 
of  it;  she  writes  clearly — with  a  type 
writer,  if  possible — and  on  only  one  side 
of  the  paper.  She  leaves  broad  margins. 
She  does  not  roll  her  MS.,  but  sends  it 
flat,  in  a  large  envelope.  All  these  things, 
she  has  been  told,  propitiate  the  tiger- 
hearted  editor.  But  possible  publicity 
does  more  than  this :  it  suggests  great  care 
in  the  use  of  English.  The  Girl  who 
Writes  realizes  that  grammar  is  impor 
tant;  that  she  must  not  end  a  sentence 
with  a  preposition ;  that  certain  inelegan- 
cies  are  to  be  avoided.  She  will  not  say 
"in  our  midst";  she  rejects  "and  which"; 
she  even  struggles  bravely  with  personal 
pronouns,  and  is  careful  not  to  follow 
"one"  by  "they"  or  "their."  If  she  is 
a  Pennsylvanian  she  even  tries  to  dis 
criminate  between  "shall"  and  "will" 
(but  in  this  she  is  rarely  successful) . 
These  things  have  been  taught  by  the 
187 


THE  COMMON  WAY 

hope  of  publication,  and  that  they  are 
good  things  to  know  there  can  be  no 
possible  doubt.  Yet  they  are  but  the 
outward  and  visible  signs  of  the  inward 
and  spiritual  grace  which  is  called  litera 
ture;  and,  compared  with  the  dangers  ac 
companying  them,  they  are  small  matters. 

The  first  danger  of  the  hope  of  publi 
cation  is  the  comparative  ease  with  which, 
nowadays,  everything  which  has  been 
written  can  be  printed. 

In  the  last  fifteen  years  thousands  of 
periodicals  and  papers  have  sprung  up, 
which  means  hundreds  of  open  doors  to 
any  one  who,  with  a  moderate  amount 
of  cleverness,  chooses  to  put  pen  to  pa 
per.  The  ease  with  which  any  of  us  may 
appear  in  print  has  been  fatal  to  more 
than  one  good,  honest  talent  which,  with 
some  wholesome  discouragement,  might 
have  done  valuable  work  in  the  world. 
Of  course,  getting  one's  stories  printed 
does  not  of  necessity  imply  anything  so 
188 


TO  THE  GIRL  WHO  WRITES 

mercenary  as  a  check.  At  first  its  ab 
sence  may  not  strike  the  contributor  of 
a  story  which  has  been  accepted,  let 
us  say,  by  the  Humming  Bird,  or  the 
Purple  Cat,  or  even  the  village  news 
paper.  At  the  moment  when  one  tears 
off  the  wrapper  and  sees  one's  own 
thoughts  set  down  in  cold  type  on  a 
page  that  is  going  to  be  read  by  thou 
sands  of  eyes — what  difference  does  a 
check  make  ?  Probably  any  one  who  has 
done  any  literary  work  will  agree  that 
there  is  no  moment  of  creative  joy  so 
passionate  as  the  moment  when  one  sees 
one's  self  first  in  print. 

No  wonder  the  Girl  who  Writes  thrills 
with  the  hope  or  the  recollection  of  it, 
and  is  content  to  let  such  things  as  checks 
bide  their  time.  In  her  appreciation  of 
this  intense  moment  she  has  been  known 
to  offer  to  pay  for  the  printing  of  her 
sketch  in  a  periodical,  or  for  its  publica 
tion  in  book  form.  The  latter  she  can 
189 


THE    COMMON    WAY 

do  easily  enough;  there  are  plenty  of 
publishers  who  are  willing  to  take  her 
money  and  print  her  book,  exactly  as 
they  would  print  the  report  of  an  insane 
asylum  or  a  hotel  prospectus.  When  the 
Girl  who  Writes  has  had  her  MS.  declined 
with  thanks  by  a  dozen  of  the  great  pub 
lishing-houses,  she  has  been  known  to 
say  that  there  was  a  clique  in  literature 
which  would  not  let  the  new-comer  in. 
It  is  at  this  hurt  and  angry  moment,  per 
haps,  that  she  goes  to  a  publisher,  and, 
turning  her  purse  inside  out,  thrusts  upon 
the  world  her  little,  pathetic,  white-hot, 
undesired  book.  It  is  here  that  the  fatal 
ease  of  publication  gets  in  its  deadly 
work :  it  makes  the  Girl  who  Writes  blind 
to  a  certain  hard,  economic  fact:  that 
what  the  world  wants  in  literature,  the  world 
will  pay  for.  And  what  it  will  not  pay 
for  is  not  only  not  wanted,  but  (frequent 
ly)  not  worth  having. 

If,  with  a  sinking  heart,  the  Girl  who 
190 


TO  THE  GIRL  WHO  WRITES 

Writes  takes  back  from  the  postman, 
again  and  again  and  again,  her  poor, 
battered,  mail -worn  MS.,  let  her  make 
up  her  mind  to  this  plain  and  sobering 
truth — it  is  not  desired.  And  let  her, 
with  a  delicacy  which,  under  like  cir 
cumstances,  she  would  show  for  herself, 
refrain  from  sending  her  book  where 
it  is  not  wanted. 

In  other  words,  if  one  business  house 
after  another  sees  no  demand  for  her 
book,  let  her  conclude  that  there  is  no 
demand;  and  never,  never,  never  make 
the  mistake  of  publishing  it  herself! 
(This  does  not,  of  course,  apply  to  scien 
tific  or  philosophical  books;  these  must 
often  be  practically  given  to  the  world; 
and  then  publication  by  the  authors 
merits  only  gratitude  and  honor.) 

The  ease  with  which  one's  thoughts 

may  be  sent  out  into  the  world  creates 

another  danger — haste  in  writing.     This 

danger  is  not  peculiar  to  the  new-comer 

191 


THE   COMMON   WAY 

in  literature ;  it  attacks  the  old  -  stager 
just  as  virulently — perhaps  even  more 
so,  for  the  check  is  sometimes  a  bitter 
consideration,  and  the  demoralizing  and 
corrupting  pot-boiler  is  the  result.  The 
Girl  who  Writes  generally  does  not  have 
this  temptation;  what  her  work  may 
bring  is,  in  nine  case  out  of  ten,  secondary 
to  the  work  itself. 

It  is  only  when  easy  publication  has 
brought,  after  a  while,  a  very  little  bit  of 
money,  that  money  as  an  end  becomes 
a  possible  consideration.  But  the  temp 
tation  to  haste  is  another  matter.  To 
write,  to  appear  in  print,  to  be  famous! 
All  this  is  happiness  enough;  so  on  she 
goes!  What  hot  and  flashing  sentences 
tear  across  her  illegible  pages!  what 
splendid  adjectives,  what  fine  language, 
what  burning  suggestions!  Then,  "Fi 
nis"  written  with  a  beautiful  flourish,  the 
wet  sheets  are  thrust  into  an  envelope, 
and  out  runs  the  Girl  who  Writes  to 
192 


TO  THE  GIRL  WHO  WRITES 

drop  the  package  into  the  mail-box! 
Then  come  palpitating  days  and  wake 
ful  nights  of  expectation.  Then  comes 
— but,  as  the  picture  in  Bab  Ballads  de 
clares,  "the  rest  is  too  awful!'' 

The  return  of  that  package  need  not 
be  rehearsed.  The  Girl  knows  it.  It  is 
to  be  hoped  that  she  knows  also  the  re 
vulsion  of  feeling  that  comes  in  reading 
over  again,  in  cold  blood,  those  words 
that  seemed  so  full  of  genius  when  the 
MS.,  hot  from  the  pen,  started  out  into 
the  world.  The  only  really  hopeless  con 
dition  in  literature  is  where  the  writer 
cannot  see  the  weakness,  or  cheapness, 
or  bad  grammar,  or  inadequacy  of  work 
which  in  the  moment  of  creation  seemed 
good  and  strong.  If  the  Girl  who  Writes 
cannot  see  the  faults  in  her  work,  there 
is  no  hope  for  her.  Every  publisher  has 
met  real  talent  which,  hampered  by  this 
fatal  and  pathetic  blindness,  never  "ar 
rives,"  as  the  saying  is.  Over  and  over 
193 


THE  COMMON  WAY 

again  the  honest  and  earnest  effort  is 
made;  over  and  over  again  one  friendly 
critic  or  another  essays  the  ungracious 
task  of  pointing  out  what  it  is  in  the 
work  which  makes  it  just  fail  of  success; 
but  the  writer  cannot  see. 

Blindness  like  this  is  tragic,  and  is 
probably  congenital  and  hopeless;  but 
there  is  a  blindness  that  comes  only  from 
haste  in  writing,  which,  when  there  is  an 
open  mind  and  real  artistic  perception, 
can  be  cured  or,  at  any  rate,  alleviated. 
There  can  be  little  doubt  that  if,  when 
"Finis"  is  written,  the  paper  or  poem  or 
story  were  consigned,  not  to  the  mail 
box,  but  to  a  pigeon-hole  for  a  month  or 
six  weeks,  then  taken  out  and  read  care 
fully,  coldly,  if  possible,  certainly  criti 
cally,  many  a  change  for  the  better  would 
be  made.  Of  course,  this  sort  of  drudg 
ery  seems  very  stupid  after  the  fine  fury 
of  composition.  "  Let  genius  burn,  and 
hang  grammar,"  says  the  poet  (the  young 
194 


TO  THE  GIRL  WHO  WRITES 

poet).  "  Genius  is  aspiration,"  such  an 
one  declared  once;  but  a  listener,  full  of 
years  and  honors,  said,  dryly,  "  Genius  is 
perspiration." 

There  is  one  other  thing  that  the  Girl 
who  Writes  ought  to  consider,  and  that 
is  this:  has  life  been  real  enough,  rich 
enough,  deep  enough,  for  her,  in  her  fif 
teen  or  sixteen  or  even  twenty  years,  to 
have  found  in  it  something  to  give  the 
world?  Experience,  after  all,  is  what 
counts.  And,  generally  speaking,  if  the 
Girl  who  Writes  has  lived  the  safe  and 
guarded  and  normal  life  which  she  ought 
to  have  lived,  she  has  had  no  experiences; 
she  has  not  gone  down  very  deep  into 
life.  Her  hopes  and  fears  and  joys 
have  been  all  on  the  surface — where  they 
should  be. 

There  is  still  another  danger  about  early 
expression — the  stream  gives  out.  Why 
this  should  be  may  be  explained  in  one 
way  or  another,  but  the  fact  is  perfectly 

195 


THE  COMMON   WAY 

certain.  Any  editor  can  tell  dreary  tales 
of  precocious  talent,  even  of  genius 
(which  is  a  different  thing  altogether), 
which  has  burned  like  a  comet  across 
his  murky  editorial  horizon — flashed,  and 
burned,  and  dropped  into  darkness. 
This  poor  editor  finds  a  story  written  by 
a  girl,  say,  of  eighteen — delicate,  dis 
criminating,  with  real  distinction  of  style, 
with  positive  human  interest;  a  story 
that  makes  the  battered  reader  thrill 
with  hope  that  he  has  found  a  valuable 
contributor;  it  is  published,  and  further 
contributions  are  solicited.  But,  oh, 
what  weakness  and  insipidity  those 
"further  contributions"  reveal!  The 
torch  has  been  blown  out,  the  fountain 
has  failed.  Why?  Who  can  say!  But 
it  would  seem  as  though  there  had  not 
been  oil  enough  in  the  lamp,  water 
enough  in  the  cistern.  Life  had  not  yet 
given  love  and  hope  and  death;  the 
writer  had  not  yet  really  begun  to  live. 
196 


TO  THE  GIRL  WHO  WRITES 

Of  course,  this  is  a  generalization.  It 
is  not  always  so;  but  it  happens  often 
enough  to  at  least  suggest  reflection — 
which  might  be  summarized  as  follows : 

Be  sure  you  have  something  to  give 
before  you  offer  your  thoughts  to  the 
world. 

The  critical  friend  of  the  Girl  who 
Writes  will  feel  a  certain  uneasiness  at 
any  publication  before  the  writer  is 
twenty -two  or  twenty -three.  The  Girl 
who  Writes  will  think  one  might  well 
suggest  Methuselah  as  an  age  qualifica 
tion  if  twenty  -  five  or  twenty  -  six  years 
were  suggested ;  so  the  critical  friend  had 
best  forbear  —  but  he  will  have  his  opin 
ion! 

For,  after  all,  while  one  muses  the  fire 
burns!  Judgment  and  deep  understand 
ing  of  life,  love,  and  patience,  reverence 
and  hope,  come  with  years,  and  we  want 
these  things  in  the  books  we  read,  be 
cause  the  knowledge  of  them  helps  us  to 
197 


THE    COMMON   WAY 

live.  And  if  our  girl,  while  she  is  waiting 
for  such  knowledge,  takes  the  time  of 
growth  to  feed  upon  the  classics,  she  will 
cultivate  taste  and  style  and  the  sense 
of  proportion,  so  that  when  she  does 
get  to  work  she  will  make  us  all  her 
debtors. 

The  sum  of  all  these  discouraging  and 
disagreeable  things  said  to  a  girl  that 
everybody  is  really  very  fond  of  (never 
end  a  sentence  with  a  preposition,  girls!) 
is:  wait;  and  again,  wait;  and  yet  once 
more,  wait. 

Wait  until  you  can  publish  what  you 
have  to  say  under  dignified  auspices. 

Wait  until  the  glamour  of  creation  set 
tles  and  clears  and  you  can  judge  of  the 
quality  of  your  work. 

Wait  until  living  has  taught  you  what 
life  means;  until,  through  study,  you  have 
begun  to  comprehend  art  and  nature,  and, 
through  experience,  you  have  begun  to 
apprehend  God  and  man. 
198 


TO  THE  GIRL  WHO  WRITES 

Then  write! — and  may  the  world  be 
better  and  richer  and  happier  because 
God  gives  you  the  high  and  noble  power 
of  expression. 


THE    END 


FOURTEEN  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 


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